


Reverse Phantoms

by ProbablytherealDeaththeKid



Series: Reverse Phantoms [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AU, Angst, Blood and Injury, Drug Addiction, Ectoplasm, Gen, Minor Character Death, Vampirism, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablytherealDeaththeKid/pseuds/ProbablytherealDeaththeKid
Summary: Just a few days after the accident, Danny's parents are arrested for child endangerment. Danny and Jazz are separated in the system. Jazz gets taken in by her uncle, Vlad who works at Axium Labs, but Danny is adopted by a rich couple who own a castle in Wisconsin. While alone, Danny discovers his new-found ghost powers and has to figure them out on his own.
Relationships: Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton
Series: Reverse Phantoms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914949
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	1. The Accident

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE: The reason I had the choose your ending is because I couldn't decide between two endings, but I've made the decision now. Don't worry, it'll still be a series (two parts as of now), but I have officially decided the ending of this part.
> 
> Also, this is kinda a horror fic. I tried to keep it PG-13, though. All the blood is ectoplasm, so read at your own risk.

Rather than studying in the school library that day, Jazz opted to head home. Her parents said that they would be out ghost hunting, so she figured that it was best to go home and look after Danny, ensuring that he and his two friends didn't get into any trouble. As she locked up her car and headed inside, a sudden boom rocked the house.

"Woah!" she exclaimed, dropping her keys and catching herself on the wall.

"Danny!" two voices called.

Danny? It came from the basement.

Jazz instantly stood back up and rushed towards the stairs and stormed into the basement lab. Sam and Tucker were kneeling on the floor next to someone on their knees, one hand to his head. He had white hair and a black jumpsuit, and he looked rather a lot like…

"Danny," Sam breathed, raising her hand, "are you okay?" She motioned to touch him, only for her hand to slide right through his shoulder.

"Danny?" Jazz exclaimed, making Tucker and Sam jump.

"Jazz…" Tucker muttered. "We don't know what happened. He-he went into the portal to check it out, and…"

Jazz bolted towards him and got down on her knees. "Danny?" she said, her voice trembling terribly.

The boy groaned and removed his hand from his head, looking up at Jazz with bleary, green eyes. "Jazz…" he breathed.

A white ring flashed into existence around his waist and split lengthwise in half. The two rings traveled apart until they passed his head and feet, changing his hair to black, his eyes to blue, and his jumpsuit to white.

Then he dropped.

Tucker and Sam both called for him, shaking his limbs to try and get him to respond, but he wouldn't. His eyes remained closed, his face blank and calm.

Jazz instantly pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911. "911, what is your emergency?" the operator stated.

"It's my brother!" Jazz shouted, her calm-inducing shock completely giving way to panic. "There was some kind of accident, and he's unconscious!"

"Okay, ma'am. What's your location?"

Jazz gave the address. "It has a giant neon sign that says 'Fenton Works' on it. Can't miss it."

"Okay. Calm your breathing, miss. You can't help him if you pass out. Now, is your brother breathing?" the operator asked.

Jazz looked to Sam and Tucker that were still trying to get Danny to respond. "Is he breathing?"

Sam leaned down and put her ear to his chest. After a second, she looked back up and nodded. "It's shallow and struggling, but yeah."

Jazz relayed the information to the operator. "Is he bleeding at all?" they continued.

"No," Jazz breathed, shaking her head. "There's no marks on him at all." The sound of sirens reached her ears through the walls of the lab. "I hear sirens. Is that them?"

"Yes," the operator said. "Just hang in there. They're about a block away."

"Okay. We're downstairs in the basement. The door's unlocked," Jazz explained.

It wasn't much longer until the ambulance arrived. A pair of paramedics rushed into the lab with a stretcher and bags of equipment. "Stand back, kids," one of them said, ushering Tucker and Sam away from Danny. The two younger teens ran up to Jazz as the paramedics started their work on Danny.

Jazz didn't know what to do. Normally, she had all the answers, but she didn't have a clue what to do.

"Put him on the stretcher," the same paramedic ordered.

His partner readied the stretcher, and together, they lifted Danny on top of it. They took Danny out of the lab and up the stairs.

"We gotta follow them," Sam said, rushing after them.

"I gotta call mom and dad," Jazz whispered as she followed Sam.

The three of them jumped into her car, and Jazz started it up as the ambulance peeled off, sirens blaring. Once she was safely out of the driveway, she pulled out her phone, speed-dialing her dad. She put the phone to her ear, pleading that he would pick up, but the phone rang out. Jazz groaned in frustration and ended the call to redial. On the third try, her dad finally picked up. "What is it, Jazz," Jack greeted, though it was clear he was frustrated.

"It's Danny!" she shouted. "He had some kind of accident in the lab. We're following the ambulance to the hospital. Meet us there."

She didn't wait for his response and hung up. She knew she was following too close, but she couldn't risk getting separated from the ambulance.

They couldn't get to the hospital fast enough, but when they did, she found the closest parking spot possible and turned the key. She jumped out of the car, and Sam and Tucker followed. Jazz didn't even bother to lock the car as she stormed into the hospital just in time to see Danny being wheeled in, an oxygen mask on his face and a paramedic on top of him as he repeatedly pumped his chest.

Jazz put a hand to her mouth, sudden dizziness and nausea overtaking her.


	2. Repercussions

"Mister and Missus Fenton?" a voice called, getting the two parents, pair of friends and the sister to all look up from Danny as he laid on the bed.

"Yes?" Maddie asked as the pair of policemen entered the hospital room.

"We're here to interview each of you about what happened," the same officer explained.

"Is that necessary?" Maddie wondered. "It was just an accident."

"We know, ma'am," the other officer acknowledged. "It's protocol for every 911 call. We have to compile a report."

Maddie nodded as Jack put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll go first, sweetheart."

The individual interviews each took place in the officers' squad car, and it took about two hours for all the interviews to conclude, and in that time, Danny woke up. The first thing his emerging consciousness noticed was that his chest hurt like Dash had given him a pummeling. He cautiously lifted his hand and placed it on his chest. "Danny?" a voice called a second later. He opened his eyes and found his mother looking at him with worry.

"What happened?" he breathed.

* * *

After the last interview--Maddie's interview--was over, it was Danny's turn. The sun was almost set, and visiting hours were over, so his family and two friends were quickly ushered out by both the doctors and the two policemen. After they were gone, the men took a seat in two nearby chairs, and one pulled out a notebook and a pen. "Can you tell us what happened, Danny?" the one without the notebook asked.

"I'm not exactly sure," Danny said, looking down at the sheets as he tried to remember. "My parents weren't home, and Sam, Tucker and I were goofing off in the lab."

"Can you describe this lab?" the officer inquired while his partner took down notes.

Danny nodded. "Yeah. It's my parents' lab. They're ghost hunters so they mess around with inventions and stuff down there. A few months ago, they started to work on this portal thing that should have let them see into the ghost world or something?"

"Did it work?"

"No. They just quit the project out of frustration, but my friends and I were curious about it," Danny continued. "They always warned us not to mess with it unless we wore one of their protective jumpsuits, so I put one on and went inside. I put my hand on the wall, and I guess I hit a button or something because it suddenly activated."

"Have any other inventions of your parents suddenly activated like that?"

Danny shook his head. "No. They don't actually work. Either that or they haven't actually found a ghost yet."

"Where were your parents at the time of the accident?"

"They were out ghost hunting. It's not unusual."

The two policemen asked a couple of more questions, but the interview was over after a few minutes. "Thank you, Mister Fenton," the talkative one said as his partner put away his notebook and pen. "We'll be in touch."

Danny nodded as they stood up. They left and closed the door to the hospital room, and soon after, a stabbing pain pierced his chest. Danny cried out and grabbed at his chest, breathing heavily. The door opened again, and a nurse came in with his dinner. Seeing him in pain, she instantly put his food tray down on the table at the end of his bed and rushed to him. "Are you okay?"

The pain stopped as suddenly as it came, finally allowing Danny to breathe. The nurse repeated her question, and Danny shrugged. "I guess so. My chest suddenly hurt."

The nurse pulled her stethoscope out of her pocket and said, "Let me see."

Danny straightened up, letting the nurse take a listen to his heart. She listened all over his chest and gently prodded him in various places, asking him if it was tender. Danny shook his head at each question. The nurse sighed and backed away, putting her stethoscope back into her pocket. "Well, I don't hear anything wrong with your heart, and if you're not hurting when I touch you, it might not be any reason for concern. You could still be feeling the effects of the CPR the paramedic had to perform."

Danny nodded. The nurse left the room, and Danny stared at the tray of food. His heart was stopped for one full minute. It was still weird to think, but for one full minute, he was dead.

* * *

Two days later, Jack, Maddie, Jazz and Vlad were driving up to the hospital in the Fenton Family RV. "Thanks for coming, Vlad," Jack said from the steering wheel. "I know it might be a little weird because this is another lab accident, but I'm still grateful."

Vlad smiled and nodded. "Not a problem, Jack. I know exactly what Danny is going through, so who better to cheer him up? And thanks to Jazz here for inviting me."

"Sorry you had to skip out on your job, though, Uncle Vlad," Jazz apologized.

Vlad waved a dismissive hand. "They can manage for one day."

"How is Axium Labs doing, by the way?" Maddie asked and twisted around in her seat to look at him.

"Great," Vlad said. "Damon is doing great in terms of security, and the project I'm working on is quite interesting."

"And what project is that?" Maddie wondered, a bit of hope in her voice.

Vlad looked at her disapprovingly. "You know I can't talk much about it."

"Yeah, I know," Maddie groaned, her shoulders slumping.

"All I can say is 'tiny robots'," Vlad informed.

Maddie hummed in curiosity. "Interesting…"

Jack parked the car in the hospital's parking lot and shut down the RV. The group got out, and a second later, a team of police swarmed them. "Mister and Missus Fenton," the same officer who interviewed them before called, "you are hereby charged with felony child endangerment, and we are placing you under arrest."

"What!" the group simultaneously exclaimed.

"We _never_ meant to hurt our son! We never would!" Maddie added.

"We love him! We'd never hurt him!" Jack agreed as an officer handcuffed his and his wife's wrists.

"You can't do that!" Jazz yelled.

"Calm down, Miss Fenton," the officer who interviewed Jazz said, a note of warning in his voice as he approached her. "You won't need to worry. We'll get you and your brother placed into foster care, and-"

"What!" Jazz shouted again. "You can't put Danny and I in foster care! We could get separated!"

More out of instinct than anything else, Vlad interjected. "I'll take them."

Jazz, the officer, and Jack and Maddie turned to him. "Yes!" Jack agreed. "He's a good family friend."

"With all due respect, sir, we'll still have to send a social worker to your home to ensure that it is safe for them," the officer reminded.

Vlad nodded. "I understand, but I _will_ be taking at least one of them."

* * *

Danny stood at the window of his hospital room, watching his parents be arrested down below. He knew that he should be feeling something, but he was so overwhelmed that it seemed like he had shut down. He wasn't feeling much of anything.

Last night, he woke up on the floor. He would have thought that he had just fallen out of bed if it wasn't for the fact that he was under his bed and not beside it. But he still dismissed it as he realized that he had to pee. He got up from the floor and went to the bathroom only to gasp when he looked in the mirror. The ghostly white hair, green eyes, and glowing, white aura were more than shocking.

He didn't know what exactly was being talked about down there as his parents were being arrested, but his Uncle Vlad holding Jazz back from nearly decking one of the officers was certainly a strange sight. He had never seen her so angry.

After a moment, the same officer who had interviewed him yesterday gestured towards the hospital, and Jazz threw her hands up in either defeat or exasperation, marching towards the hospital. A minute or two later, Vlad, Jazz and the officer appeared in the doorway of this hospital room. Jazz rushed to Danny and took him in her arms. "What's going on?" Danny asked, his voice more monotone than he would like.

"Danny," Jazz sniffed, "we're going to have to go somewhere for a day or two."

"Where?"

"A group home," she answered, her voice wavering and weak.

"What do you mean?" Danny gasped, letting go of his sister and taking a few steps back.

"We…" Jazz trailed off.

"You're going to be put into foster care," Vlad explained, seeing that Jazz clearly couldn't continue. "I would take you both home with me, but I can't right now."

"Why not?" Danny demanded.

"We have to send a social worker to Mister Masters's home to make sure that it's safe for you two and that he can afford to take care of you both," the officer answered. "We'll try to get it done as fast as we can, alright?"

Danny was cleared to leave the hospital later that day, and the two siblings were escorted back to their house to pick up necessities before they were sent to their group home. They were both observed by an officer. Danny knew that it was just protocol and that they were trying to keep them safe, but he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable with the officer's eyes burning holes into his back. He could only pack one suitcase. Several shirts and pairs of pants and underwear, his toiletries and school things were givens, but after that, he didn't have much room left. He took one of his rocket models. It was the last one he made. He completed it with Sam and Tucker just before the accident.

The accident. Was that what caused his change last night? It was so hard to change back, but eventually he did. He was lucky that no nurse or doctor came to check up on him.

On his way out of the house, he passed the door to the basement lab, and he couldn't help but glance down the stairs. Whatever energy had blasted him hurt. Badly. He could barely describe how much pain it put him in.

"I know it's hard to leave home," Danny's escort voiced, pulling him out of his thoughts, "but it's for the best."

Danny kept going, meeting up with Jazz and her escort at the door. They loaded their suitcases into the trunk before climbing into the back seat. As they drove away from their home, Danny let his mind drift again.

Why did his parents want to invent the thing anyways? They probably didn't know how dangerous it could be, but still. He nearly died, and for all he knew, he was still dead. And who on Earth would put the "On" switch on the _inside_ of the machine? His dad probably put it there when his mom wasn't looking. He's always screwing things up. If that was true, that would mean that it was his dad's fault for nearly killing him, and he wasn't sure if he should blame him yet.

The group home they arrived at was just outside of Amity Park. It was large, and filled with kids of all ages. The rooms were separated by gender, though, so Danny and Jazz couldn't stay together. Most of the kids were younger than them and nice, but some were self-isolating loners who barely spoke. The two foster parents who ran the home were pleasant people, but they seemed dismissive and inattentive to the kids they were looking after.

Danny couldn't find a moment alone over the course of the two weeks they stayed there, but whenever he did, he would always take the time to think and practice. He could better control his transformations, now, and there were no more random pains. Every now and then while he was transformed, he would float off of the ground, and he was steadily taking himself higher and higher, but he didn't go so high that he was easy to see. Flying was easy to handle, but recently, he kept losing his pants and randomly dropping things. If he was dead, then these abilities were those of a ghost. He must be turning intangible. He had to learn to control that soon.

What he thought about during these practice sessions and when he had to do chores for the house, were his parents, and he could no longer deny the anger that was expanding within him. Why did his dad put the button there? Why did he bring up the project in the first place? It kept both of his parents locked up in the basement for over four months while they built it, and then they just quit? They didn't even see the project through. His mom was the one who kept trying to console his dad, but he just gave up. That day was the first time he had even looked out the window let alone went outside. His dad was such a goof-up, and this most recent one nearly killed him.

After dinner that night, Vlad finally showed up at the door of the home. "How're mom and dad?" Jazz demanded, rushing up to him. "We haven't heard anything."

Vlad gently led her back to the sofa and sat down next to Danny. Jazz sat down on Danny's other side, watching Vlad intently. "Your parents…" he trailed off for a second and took a breath before resuming. "Your parents' trial went alright, and the judge was reasonable. She recognized that it was a mixture of teenagers messing around and lack of supervision. However, because of how severely hurt you were, they sentenced your parents to three years in prison."

Danny jumped at the news, and Jazz yelled in surprise, "Three years?"

Vlad nodded gravely.

Danny didn't know what to say. Maybe his dad deserved it for all of his screw ups over the hears, but his mom didn't. All his mom tried to do was fix his dad's mistakes. Heck, _she_ was the one who managed to get the house back to Earth after his dad teleported them to an alternate reality.

Jazz was quiet for a moment before speaking up again. "What did the social worker say?"

Vlad took a preparatory breath before explaining, "The social worker determined that my apartment is only big enough, and I only make enough for one of you to stay with me."

"Only one? Danny. It's gonna be Danny," Jazz declared. 

"Actually…" Vlad interrupted, "they've already determined who it's going to be."

"Who?" Danny asked.

"Jazz," Vlad stated. "Their reasoning is that she's almost eighteen, and once she reaches her eighteenth birthday and moves out, Danny can come and live with me until your parents' parole is up if he doesn't already have a home by then."

"That's not fair to Danny!" Jazz yelled. "He's young and needs stability! He needs to stay with you!"

"I agree with you, Jazz, but there's nothing I can do," Vlad said, his voice low and sympathetic. "I'm just happy that I can take at least one of you."


	3. The Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the reason that I had the "choose your ending" thing for this fic is because I couldn't decide between two different endings, but I have decided, now. It'll still be a series of at least two parts, but no more choose your ending thing.

Jazz was out and someone new moved into the group home relatively quickly. Jazz texted and called him every single day. She had lunch with him every day at school, and Sam and Tucker kept trying to talk with him and check up on his health both physically and mentally, but Danny didn't feel much like talking. Jazz brought him things from his room that she thought he would want, even though he never asked for them, but he was grateful for the extra changes of underwear.

Danny wanted to talk with them, but he was too lost in his own head, planning what aspect of his powers he would work on next. He couldn't escape the feeling that using his powers gave him. It was calming. It shoved everything else away. He didn't think about how lonely he was in the group home, how afraid he was of being adopted and dragged somewhere across the country, or of how angry he was whenever he thought of his father.

He couldn't practice his powers at school while under the watchful eyes of his teachers, friends, sister, and the multiple cameras around the school. Little by little the thought of being adopted and dragged far away started to sound appealing. That way, he wouldn't have to look at his friends sad, pity-filled faces, or the worried eyes of his sister. Whenever he looked at his friends, the only thing he could think of was the portal and the pain when it activated. It made it so hard to be around them.

Danny spent about a year in his group home watching other kids get adopted and happily move out, and he continued to practice his powers mostly at night. It was now simple to fly and turn invisible and intangible. Out of curiosity, he wanted to see what his powers looked like. He didn't know if it was possible to hold his abilities in his hands, but he wanted to try. He could feel the power rushing inside of him 24/7. All he had to do was to pull it out. One night, he snuck out into the backyard of the group home and morphed into his ghost form, now only slightly worried as he felt his humanity leave him. He held out his hands and closed his eyes to concentrate. He reached down and pulled the power upwards. It took several tries, but eventually, it was like a dam had burst, making his hands burn.

He gasped in shock and snapped his eyes open. The burning on his hands faded instantly, leaving his hands glowing green. As he stood there, gaping in amazement, the energy in his hands got gradually harder and harder to hold onto. It was straining to be let go like a desperate bird trying to escape. Not wanting to damage anything, Danny stretched his arms above his head, palms facing the sky and gave the energy permission to leave. The green energy burst forward in two bright green rays that joined into one. Danny didn't know when it would stop, but eventually it did, the light of it shining on the clouds as it moved like a reverse shooting star.

It was amazing. His heart was hammering with excitement. What else could he do?

* * *

The next morning, a couple appeared dressed in expensive clothes. It was a man and a woman looking to adopt. Under the supervision of the group home's foster parents, the couple walked around the home, watching the kids both play and do chores. They said a few words and asked a few questions to some of the kids, but they lingered strangely around Danny.

The woman of the couple sat down on the sofa across from Danny as he was folding laundry for the house. "What's your name?" she asked as he put another pair of pants in the pile.

Danny looked up at her. Most of the people who came around here were only interested in adopting little kids, and the few who were actually interested in teenagers didn't really look at him. If he could convince these people to adopt him, he could get out of here and never have to look at Sam and Tucker's faces again. A clean slate. "Dan," he said.

"Short for Daniel?" she wondered, and Dan nodded. "Why are you here, Dan?"

Dan hesitated, unsure of what sob story he should tell. Something close to the truth should be fine. "My parents…" he took a deliberately unsteady breath. "They weren't exactly around a lot of the time because of their work. It was kind of dangerous work. They're inventors, but they didn't do it in a lab. One of their inventions was unstable, and I got hurt. Court said that I can't live with them anymore."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she sighed. "Jerry!" she called, cupping her hand to the side of her mouth. "Come here!"

Jerry came over and took a seat beside his wife. "Who's this?" he wondered.

"Dan. I think we should take him, honey," the wife said. "Oh! I just realized I never told you my name. I'm Marie." She held her hand out.

Dan put the shirt he was folding back in the basket and took her hand.

"What do you want to do once you're an adult, Dan?" Jerry asked.

Dan smiled slightly as he thought of his old dream. "I want to be an astronaut. I've always found space fascinating."

"And what do you like to do for fun around here in your spare time?" Jerry continued.

"Well, normally I would build model rockets, but I haven't been able to recently. I've been taking up a bit more reading in the wake of that," Dan lied. Most of the time, he'd practice his powers, but he always took a book with him to create some sort of excuse for his absence in case anyone saw him sneak off.

The couple asked Dan question after question about himself. He would always answer with either the full truth or half-truths that he thought would get them to adopt him. Eventually, the two excused themselves and stood. Dan had finally finished folding the laundry while they were talking, so he took the opportunity to pick up the large laundry basket and take it to the laundry room, concentrating on his hearing.

Since Dan started practicing his powers, it didn't take him long to realize that his everyday senses had been enhanced. Not only could he see better in the dark, but he could hear infinitely better. It took a bit of concentration, but he could hear whispered conversations even in the loud group home. Jerry and Marie were talking with the parents of the group home, and it sounds like Dan was successful in convincing them to adopt him.

Dan placed the full basket on the shelf next to the constantly running washer and marked on the whiteboard hanging on the door which age group's laundry had been finished. The second he was out of the laundry room, the parents of the group home and Jerry and Marie approached him. "Dan," Marie cautiously began, "what would you think about us adopting you?"

Dan forced his face to display a certain amount of shock before letting his excitement show. He nodded.

Jerry and Marie both smiled and laughed, pulling him into a hug. Dan strained to hide his discomfort, but was apparently successful.

The mother of the group home finally spoke up. "Excellent! We'll start the paperwork, and you can pick him up tomorrow!"

* * *

The next day, Dan received a bunch of congratulatory hugs from the other members of the group home, and Dan couldn't wait to get out of there. His new parents brought him an additional empty suitcase for him to pack up any other things he had acquired over the year he spent in the home or to gather anything else he wanted from his house. He said goodbye to Tucker, Sam, Jazz, Uncle Vlad, Mister Lancer, and Dash. He said goodbye to Amity Park and Casper High. He got in the car that Jerry and Marie were waiting in and silently drove to the airport, a small smile on his face. He was glad to be leaving.

Apparently, Jerry and Marie had been looking around from home to home for a child since Marie couldn't have kids, but they never found the right pick until they found him. They didn't live anywhere near Amity Park, but in fact, in Wisconsin. The flight was long and arduous, and the long drive afterwards from the airport to the middle of nowhere took longer. It was already night by the time they arrived, but Dan thought that the mere sight of his new house made it worth it. Actually, "house" wasn't the right word for it. It was much more like a castle. In fact, it _was_ a castle that was previously owned by the Wisconsin Dairy King.

The two of them owned several companies, which is how they got rich. Marie's parents were the original owners of her companies, but she did an excellent job at running them personally rather than just asking someone else to do it. Jerry was a self-made millionaire, and together, they were a multi-billion dollar couple, as Jerry and Marie explained. They gave him a small tour of part of the castle, but not much because of how late it was. They showed him to one of the master bedrooms, the one that would be his. "We hope you're happy here," Marie said.

"If there's _anything_ we can do for you, don't hesitate to ask," Jerry invited.

Dan nodded, and for effect, dropped his two cases on the grand bed and ran towards them, embracing them both in a large hug. He had to convince them that he wanted to be here. That he loved them. Otherwise, they had the option to give him back.

Jerry and Marie gently embraced him before leaving him be. Dan closed the door after them and took a look around his new room. It was quite grand. It was large with three other doors. He went through the one closest to him on his right and found a bathroom. He clicked on the light, and it looked to be just as large as the bedroom. Knowing he'd need to go back in later, he left the light on and crossed the room to the door in front of him. He opened it to find a large, empty walk-in closet. He closed the door and checked out the last door. It turned out to be a personal study with a desk, chair, lamp, and empty bookshelf.

His new home was undeniably grand. He couldn't have asked for a better couple to adopt him than if he had designed them himself. Now all that was left to do was to test himself and see how far he could push his powers.


	4. Experiments

It took a few days, but Jerry and Marie arranged everything. He went to a new school; it was a private school with a uniform and everything. At least the food in the cafeteria was better. They even got him an excellent, professional-grade telescope. They were definitely nice people. Dan almost felt bad about only using them to get out of Amity. Jazz texted every day and called every other. Dan always texted back saying that he was fine, but he ignored most of the calls by saying that he was doing homework or something, and he told Sam and Tucker the same thing when they texted.

The entire time, Dan couldn't get the accident out of his head. It was a portal to another world that he had activated. He _had_ to go check it out. He had tested his flight capabilities when Jerry and Marie thought he was messing around with his telescope on the roof. He wasn't very good at math, but with no friends to goof off with and something practical to apply it to, he was getting better. After a few tests and some extra math help from his teacher, he discovered that his maximum flight speed was 200 miles per hour. If he maintained that rate, he could reach Fenton works and return to Wisconsin before he had to go to school the next morning depending on how long he spent checking out the Ghost Zone as his parents called it.

Under the guise of completing homework that he had already done at school, Dan excused himself from dinner early and went up to his room. He closed the door and transformed, his hair turning white, eyes turning green, and his clothes morphing from his t-shirt and jeans into his black and white jumpsuit. He drifted upwards, phasing through the high ceiling. He took a preparatory breath, and then launched himself through the air as fast as he could towards Amity.

It took an hour or so of continuous flight at top speed to make it to Fenton Works. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and his skin burned from the friction of flying so fast for so long. He wanted to land on the roof and just take a rest, but he turned himself invisible and checked around the place. No one was home. Not even Jazz.

Dan phased through the walls and floor until he landed on the floor of the basement lab. He dropped onto his butt on the ground, detransforming and breathing deeply. He had never flown for that long at top speed before. It was exhausting, but it was also kinda nice to know that he could last that long.

After he caught his breath, Dan lit up his hand with glowing, green energy, casting the lab in an eerie light. A second later, he found the light switch and clicked it on, letting the energy in his hand seep back into his body. He looked towards the portal. The black and yellow striped doors were closed. Jazz must have shut them the last time she was here. Dan glanced around the place in search of an opening mechanism, and eventually, he found it. He pushed the button, and the doors hissed open, revealing an endless green expanse.

Dan's breath caught in his throat. His powers stirred underneath his skin, and he automatically transformed. He hardly hesitated. He floated off of the ground and dove into the Ghost Zone. Before letting his excitement get the better of him, he took note of his surroundings to make sure he could find his way back to the portal. There wasn't much around him, but there was one floating landmass that looked like it was an island torn straight out of the ocean and a few floating doors that each had different designs. Alright. Time to explore.

Dan glided slowly around the Zone, cautiously taking it all in. Who knows what both wonders and dangers could be lurking in here? He was never really interested in his parents' work, but now that he was a part of what they studied, he might as well start looking into it. However, what he found was that this vast expanse was mostly empty. He saw a few ghosts, but they mostly kept to themselves, barely sparing him a glance as he passed by. Although, every time he came even remotely close to the ghosts, a wave of cold pierced his chest and escaped from his mouth in a fine, blue mist. One ghost seemed to be hunting other ghosts. He was tall with a green, fiery mohawk for hair, and it looked like he was wearing a metal suit. Why would a ghost need a metal battle suit?

Eventually, Dan quite literally ran into a small, green, blob ghost. Dan stopped and looked down at it. It looked at him up and down, but it didn't look like it had any more intelligence than a dog.

Due to his parents' endless persistence, Dan had learned how to use all of their tools for experimenting on ghosts, but he hadn't ever conducted an experiment himself. Granted, he was a more complex ghost, but if he could just learn the basics of how ghosts worked, it would make his life so much easier. Not to mention that having some form of concrete data would make this whole thing much less overwhelming.

Dan held his hands out to the small ghost, and it drifted mindlessly into his palms, squeaking. And who knows? Maybe this thing would make a good pet.

Something suddenly rushed by at top speed. The white streak made Dan jump, but he managed to keep a hold of the small ghost. Dan looked after it and found that the streak was heading in the direction of the portal.

Dan raced after it. Whatever it was, if it discovered the portal, that wouldn't be good. Earth could face a massive invasion of ghosts. It didn't take Dan long to reach the portal, but he didn't get there fast enough. The white streak went through the portal before Dan could get there. Not wanting to fight or to get stranded in the Ghost Zone if this ghost knew how to work the portal--though he doubted it--Dan maintained speed and turned invisible as he drifted through the portal's opening.

Now that the streak was still, Dan recognized it. It wasn't a shapeless ghost at all, but Vladdie Phantom. The ghost floated an inch or two off of the lab floor wearing his usual white jumpsuit and what looked like a lab coat. The ghost heaved a sigh of relief. "Thought I got lost for a minute there." Phantom approached the portal, forcing Dan to drift out of the way to avoid getting run into. Even if he turned intangible, gliding through him might still alert Phantom to his presence. "Twenty years of mapping this place, and you'd think I'd know where I'm going," Phantom muttered as he pressed a button, sealing the portal.

The black-haired ghost drifted upwards, phasing through the ceiling of the lab. Dan regained his visibility and stared after him. Maybe he should ask him about ghost powers. He doubted Phantom was like him, but he still had twenty years worth experience with being a ghost by the sound of it. But then again, asking him would mean coming back to Amity more than he wanted to, and he was already going to return too frequently for his liking to use his parents' equipment.

* * *

Dan kept the little ghost in a rather large petri dish that was lined with anti-ecto materials to prevent it from escaping. He used his parent's equipment, poking and prodding at the thing in order to take samples. He tested those samples even further, testing himself even, and comparing the two results, but he could barely understand them. Luckily, he had an excellent science teacher at his new school who always encouraged him and other students to conduct their own experiments--under an adult's supervision, of course. He took the results to his teacher who helped him determine what to make of the test results. Dan explained it away by saying that he was trying to figure out what to make of the similarities and differences between two plants he found, and that his original parents had a science lab, which is how he got these results.

Dan's sister and two friends were texting and calling, but he had gotten so curious about what made these ghosts tick that he ignored them. He was finally starting to see why his parents were so into studying these creatures, and now that he was one of them, the more he could learn, the better. After a month's worth of studying and practice with his teacher, he was finally able to comprehend these results on his own. He was slow, but with a little more practice, he would get better and faster at this math. His teacher said that the two "plants" were so similar, that they were likely compatible, meaning that if the two cross pollinated, the seeds they produced would likely still be able to produce offspring.

Dan was definitely not planning on having kids with the tiny ghost, but if he and the thing were compatible, what would happen if he absorbed it? Whenever he went to Amity, Dan would look through his parents' research and review fifteen-year-old news footage of Vladdie Phantom fighting other ghosts. There was this one ghost that he wished he knew more about: Spectra. From the footage, it looked like she could absorb other ghosts' powers. Dan's powers were emerging slowly. Too slowly for his liking. He wanted to see everything that he could do. After Spectra would absorb power from another ghost, it looked like she would become more powerful herself. If he absorbed power from this tiny blob of a ghost, maybe the same thing would happen to him. Trouble is, he didn't know how to absorb its power. Maybe if he just directly injected it into himself…

Jerry and Marie constantly checked up on him since he was doing so much "homework" lately. Dan kind of felt bad for misleading them, so after one family night of hanging out under the stars on the vast lawn of the castle, naming constellations and playing around with his telescope, he took off towards Amity. Jerry and Marie were nice people, and that made Dan want to tell them his secret of being, well...half dead, but he didn't. What would they even think of him if he did? Probably that he was some sort of dangerous monster. The same thing would happen if he told his friends and sister, too. He was sure of it.

He landed in his parents' lab and clicked on the light, easily finding the small ghost imprisoned on the counter. He didn't know what would happen to the ghost if he did this. It could disappear or carry on. He picked up the ecto needle and opened the dish, quickly trapping the ghost with his hand. The small thing looked up at him, it's eyes large filled with pleading. Dan couldn't do it. He put the needle down and resealed the dish.

This thing might not be alive or have much intelligence, but it did have some form of understanding of what was happening. Dan just stood there, looking between it and the needle. Should he?

Dan's phone vibrated in his jumpsuit, making him jump. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. He didn't know the number. He cautiously flipped it open, and an automated message came through the speaker. "You are receiving a call from the Colorado State correctional Facility from-" A different voice came, one Dan instantly recognized. "-Jack Fenton-" The robotic voice resumed. "Do you accept the call?"

After a second of shock, Dan nodded his head. "Yeah."

The line clicked, and his dad's voice filtered through the speaker pressed against his ear. "Son? Are you there?"

"I'm here."

A relieved breath sounded. "It's good to hear from you. Your mother and I would have called you sooner, but both Vlad and Jazz said that it might not be a good idea. Vlad said that you might be too angry to speak to us, and Jazz said that you were overwhelmed by everything that happened with the move from the group home to Wisconsin. It's great that you found people to take care of you."

Dan _was_ overwhelmed but not by the move. The sound of his father's voice alone brought back all of the anger he felt towards his incompetent father. But he couldn't let it show in his voice. He didn't want his father to ask what was wrong. "I'm alright. They're really nice people."

"Good. I'm glad for you. Jazz said that you live in a castle. Is that true? A real, actual castle?"

"Yeah," Dan breathed. "It's a big castle. And I don't have to clean my room much anymore. There's staff for that. All Jerry and Marie ask me to do is make my bed."

"And is it really the castle of the Dairy King?!" his dad practically shouted. "You know that his ghost could haunt those halls, right? Take a picture for me, will you?"

"Sure," Dan muttered, struggling to contain a scoff.

"Well, it's almost lights out here, Son," his dad informed. "I know I should have called you tomorrow morning so that we would have more time to talk, but I just couldn't wait. Your mother should be calling you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay."

"I love you, Son."

"I love you, too."

Dan couldn't move. His entire brain had frozen. It was only when the line clicked and started to buzz that he realized that Jack had hung up. Dan slowly flipped the phone closed and put it back into his pocket.

In an uncontrolled burst of anger, Dan let off and enraged shout, slamming his fist onto the metal counter, denting it.

Ghosts. That's all his father ever cared about was ghosts! His mother could at least put it aside to tend to him when he needed her. _She_ cared about him. His _father_ only cared about ghosts and how to destroy them. If Dan _ever_ told him that he was half ghost, he would try to kill him. His own son.

The tiny ghost on the table was now squeaking with fear, trying to back away from Dan as far as it could. Dan glanced at the syringe next to the dish. Maybe it'll offer a new distraction from all of this.

Dan snatched up the needle again and reopened the dish, trapping the small ghost with his hand. He didn't hesitate this time. He instantly inserted the needle into the center of the blob, straight into its core. The thing squealed in pain, but Dan didn't care. He pulled the plunger out, filling it more and more, even after the ghost's cries started to pitter out. Once the syringe was completely filled, Dan pulled the needle out and let the ghost go. Dan spared it one last glance as it fizzled out of existence.

Dan roughly pulled his glove off and rolled up the sleeve of his jumpsuit. After a small preparatory breath, Dan slid the needle into the ghostly skin of his wrist and pushed the plunger down.


	5. Rush

He was faster, stronger, and his ecto-blasts were more powerful. It was only a slight increase in power and speed, but it was still measurable. The power increase was great, but that wasn't what had him feeling so anxious that he was both tapping his foot and his pencil in class.

When he pushed the plunger down on the syringe last night, the influx of power was incredible. His heart raced, and his entire body felt heightened beyond belief. Every sense he had was thrown into overdrive, and his mind could process things infinitely faster than before. The rush wore off, of course, but he wanted to feel it again. He'd give anything to.

But he couldn't go to the Ghost Zone yet. There was a social worker coming to inspect the castle and ask him some questions to make sure Jerry and Marie weren't abusing him or something, and after that, Jerry and Marie wanted to go see a movie. They had a home theater in the castle, but they wanted the experience of going to the movies like a normal family. He couldn't skip out on them. They were such nice people that he'd feel too guilty.

The social worker that came to the castle inspected his room to make sure he had his own space and the kitchen to make sure he was eating healthy. He seemed to notice Dan's anxiously tapping leg, but wrote it off as him being an annoyed teenager, apparently.

Dan barely remembered the movie they went to see after the inspection due to his ever-increasing anxiety, but for a moment, it was a nice distraction. He, Marie, and Jerry all went out for dinner and ice cream afterwards, which were both insanely good, and after a while, Dan almost forgot his anxiety. It was only after they all went to bed that it came back. He tried to ignore it by listening to music in bed and straining to sleep, but it never came. He wanted that rush again, and maybe it would calm his anxiety, too.

With the increased speed from his injection last night, he arrived at Fenton Works faster than normal, which was good. He had all the more time to find a ghost. Dan glided through the Ghost Zone as he scanned his surroundings for a solitary ghost, the syringe clenched in his fist. Part of Dan wondered what would happen if he used the core energy of a more powerful ghost, but the other part of him didn't want to risk it. Finding a more powerful ghost could mean a fight, and he might not be able to return to the castle on time as a result. Not to mention that he had never fought a ghost before, and he didn't know if he would win.

Eventually, Dan found another small blob of a ghost. Fortunately, it was bigger than the last one, though it was not by much. Either way, it would have more core energy than the last ghost. Dan loaded up a small ecto-blast in his fingertip and sent it towards the ghost. The blast connected with a floating land mass in front of the ghost, scaring it and making it turn around. It came straight back towards Dan who easily caught it. He didn't dare look at it's face. It would only make him feel bad. He inserted the needle of the syringe into the center of the ghost and pulled back on the plunger, filling it with ghost energy.

When the syringe was full, the ghost surprisingly still remained, and Dan released it, letting it limp away. He doubted it would even survive. It's movements were sluggish, and it's form continually faded in and out of existence.

Dan glided towards the landmass he shot earlier and landed on it. It was somewhat large and filled with trees. Flying in, he thought he saw a giant skull sitting in the middle of it, but that couldn't be. Must have been just a trick of the light on a normal mountain. Dan found a grove of thick trees and ducked down inside. He settled down between the bushes at the base of one of the trees and took his glove off. He rolled up his sleeve and held the needle at his skin, ready to inject himself again, but he hesitated.

Was it worth it? All of the anti-drug propaganda from his schooling leapt to mind. He always thought it took a long time for a person to become addicted to something, and his parents always said that there were more fulfilling things, like his family.

His parents. His father.

The same feelings of anger and abandonment invaded him at the thought of Jack, and then there was no more hesitation. He inserted the needle and pushed the plunger down. At first, Dan didn't feel much of anything. It was like shooting icy water into his veins. He pulled the needle out and took a breath in preparation. After a moment or two, Dan gasped at the instant rush that blew through his entire body at once. He lost his breath as his heart suddenly jumped and beat faster.

It didn't take long for the initial rush to fade away, but the rest of it came quite quickly. The power influx heightened every sense he had and made his entire body practically hum with power, but he didn't get to enjoy it for too long.

"What're you doing here?" a deep voice questioned.

Dan snapped to attention and got to his feet just as a silver, black, and green ghost in a metal battle suit came through the trees. It was the same ghost he spotted from a distance the first time he came to the Ghost Zone. "Who are you?" Dan questioned.

" _I_ ask the questions here," the ghost dismissed, a snarl on his metal lips. "This is _my_ island, and no one is allowed here!"

The ghost extended his arm, and a large ecto-gun popped out of it. It's barrel pointed directly at Dan's core.


	6. Skulker

Dan launched himself upwards and off the landmass. The green ray from the ghost's gun connected with the ground right where he used to be standing. Dan phased through the trees, but in his haste, he forgot to turn the syringe intangible. It was pulled out of his hand by a passing tree branch, and it dropped to the ground. Dan had a moment of panic, but remembered that there were more of those back at the lab. Losing one wouldn't matter.

Dan readied a blast in his hand and instantly launched it towards Skulker, and even though it wasn't his focus, he still noticed that his blast was different. It wasn't entirely green. Little tendrils of pink were weaved throughout the green ray. A cry came from below when Dan's blast connected with the ground, obliterating the entire area and obscuring it with dust. The ghost in the metal suit came up out of the dust at top speed with a pair of mechanical wings extended from his shoulders. He hovered above the dust cloud across from Dan, who readied another pink and green blast.

After the ghost stopped coughing, he looked up at Dan with a dangerous smile. He held up the syringe that Dan had dropped. It still had a few drops of ectoplasm coating its interior. "You're an energy absorber," the ghost commented. "A new ability, by the looks of it. It's your lucky day. Energy absorption is a somewhat rare ability, and I am a collector of the rare and unique. You get to live today, ghost, and I, Skulker, the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter, shall keep you in a cage on my island."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Dan growled.

Skulker smirked and extended a fist, a new gun coming out of his arm. Dan put out his own hand and let the green and pink blast loose. The blast connected with the gun before Skulker could fire, shattering it to pieces. Dan didn't want to hurt anyone, and this ghost was obviously inside the high-tech suit. If he could take out the limbs of the suit, Skulker would be knocked out of commission, and neither of them would be hurt.

Dan called forth two more blasts into his hands and quickly took out both of Skulker's mechanical arms before he could pull out any more weapons. Dan hardly waited a second and launched two more blasts towards Skulker, destroying his legs.

The force of the blasts each pushed Skulker back bit by bit until he dropped back into the steadily clearing dust cloud with the final one. Dan followed him down to ensure that he couldn't get back up for a while, and he found Skulker lying on the ground. If this guy is a hunter--the Ghost Zone's greatest, apparently--he would continue to hunt Dan down until he gets him in a cage. He needs to find a permanent solution here and now that would get this guy off his back.

"Looks like your suit's broken," Dan mocked, his heart beating fast from both the injected energy and fear.

Skulker growled from his position on the ground. His mechanical wings hummed, and he floated off the ground. Dan didn't let him get far and blasted his wings, shattering them to pieces. The ghost screamed as he crashed to the ground. "I've never seen you before!" Skulker shouted. "I know every ghost in this Zone, and a new ghost shouldn't be able to deliver such powerful blasts."

"And _you_ are a little powerless right now," Dan remarked, taking slow steps towards Skulker. When he got to him, he knelt down at his head and stared at him directly. "Here's the deal. I don't know how your suit works, but I can fix it. At least pay to have it fixed. The only catch is that you have to leave me alone. You don't try to capture me, and you get the money to repair your suit."

Skulker bared his teeth and snarled, but it was clear in his green-glowing eyes that he was considering it. "I sure would love to have you in my collection, ghost."

"Dan. And perhaps you still could, to a degree. You can tell me all about this place. You get to hang around me, and I get to practice my abilities and learn about this place," Dan offered.

Skulker groaned. "Deal."

"I would offer to shake on it, but…" Dan trailed off. He stood and prepared to take off back towards the portal. "I'll be back tomorrow with the first payment."

He didn't spare Skulker and second glance and jumped up off the landmass. With this newly-injected power coursing through him, he wanted to see how fast he could go. He was too overwhelmed last time to test his abilities. He launched himself forward, a puffed up ring remaining behind him in the energy nova filled air. He laughed at the rush, the wind blowing through his hair. His skin stung, and he could tell that he was going faster than he ever had before.

* * *

The only reason he offered to pay for the repairs to Skulker's suit is because Jerry and Marie were about to give him his first allowance. His father didn't even give him an allowance. They had discussed the amount with him previously, and he was expecting at least 300 dollars per month. He highly doubted that he would burn through all that money each month, but now he had something practical to spend it on.

It was the day after he met the ghost that he got his allowance, and it was just as he had expected. He kept fifty dollars out of the three hundred and delivered the $250 to Skulker that night. He made a quick pit stop to get a syringe in case he spotted another small ghost and then took off towards Skulker's island. He dropped down where he and Skulker fought the night before. There was a small crater where Dan's blast had landed, but there was no Skulker. Dan floated a few inches of the ground and slowly glided forward, scanning the area.

Eventually, he found Skulker. Dan landed and slipped his hand into his pocket, anxiously fingering the syringe inside. "Spare suit?" he wondered.

Skulker jumped and unsteadily turned around. "Yes. Thanks to you, I had the privilege to pull this old model out of the closet." As if on cue, his suit sparked, making him twitch. "I haven't even done maintenance on this thing in...a decade."

Dan let the syringe go and pulled out the stack of $250 from his pocket. "Well, hopefully this will help you get started on repairs."

Skulker unsteadily approached and took the cash from Dan's hand. He flipped through it and looked back up in disappointment. "Only $250? This will hardly cover repairs on _one_ arm!"

"And you'll get another $250 next month," Dan appeased. "More incentive for you not to capture me."

Skulker scoffed. "Well, I'm not breathing a word of information until I get full payment."

Dan nodded. "Fair enough. But why does a ghost need a high-tech battle suit anyways?" he wondered.

"You're not getting a word out of me until I get it fixed."

* * *

Still having the $50 from his first allowance, for the next three months, Dan gave Skulker the full $300 rather than $250, and Dan didn't simply take his word for it. He demanded Skulker show him his suit in its current state to ensure that he didn't overpay him. Apparently, though, ghost materials were a lot cheaper than what Skulker called "Real World" material because they were partially made of ghost energy, so they were easier to make.

Dan continued to inject himself with energy from other ghosts, and the ghosts he took it from were gradually growing bigger and bigger. Skulker didn't know much about the energy absorption ability, but he greatly admired it and was curious about how it worked. Dan was, too, so he injected himself in front of Skulker once. Apparently, Dan's entire body was consumed by a bright green aura for a few seconds before it was officially absorbed into a ghostly system.

Dan's powers were growing stronger and stronger, and it wasn't long before he figured out how to make shields, deflect other ghost's energy, and even duplicate. He couldn't do much with the duplicates yet, but they were growing steadily more powerful as well. His duplicates were less powerful than he was, but eventually, even they were able to beat Skulker in sparring. His ectoblasts had steadily turned from green to a more powerful pink, and his ghost sense was less sensitive. In the beginning, every single ghost he sensed would cause an icy blue mist to exit his mouth, but now it was only more powerful ghosts that made that happen. The more powerful the ghost, the colder his ghost sense was, but not many could make that mist come out of his mouth anymore. And it wasn't just his powers that were changing.

The physical appearance of his ghost half was shifting. He looked almost completely human when he was in his ghost form before, but now he looked...menacing. His skin was growing more and more pale until he was practically blue. His eyes were changing color, too. Before, his eyes were bright green, but now they were all but red. They were still slightly orange, but he didn't think it would be long until they were fully red. His incisors were lengthening into fangs that were so sharp that it was hard to talk without cutting the inside of his lip. He was growing taller and bulkier. Even his human form was taller and more muscled, but it wasn't as drastic of a change as his ghost form's. Jerry and Marie kept saying how all the girls at school must be all over him. If the girls were taking a liking to him, he didn't notice.

It was only when the sophomore school dance rolled around that he realized that they did like him. He would be lying if he said that he didn't care about it, but it wasn't really his focus. Even during the dance while he was dancing with an attractive, brown-haired girl and laughing with her group of friends, he was thinking about the injected energy. He couldn't get it out of his head, and it seemed like the more he put into himself, the more he needed it, not that he minded the increased anxiety. The payoff was worth it.

At the end of the night, the girl was nervous outside of her door and gave him a quick peck goodbye. It made his already anxious heart skip a beat. She ducked in through her door, her head down and her cheeks red. Dan turned around without a word and walked back down the driveway to the car. He got into the backseat and closed the door, a little bit confused. Why did she kiss him?

"How did it go?" the chauffeur asked as he pulled away, a smile in his words.

It took a moment for Dan to answer. "She kissed me."

"Congratulations!" he said. "Is it your first kiss?"

Dan nodded. "Yeah. It was small and quick."

"Just you wait till you're all older and less awkward. The kisses will get better," the driver comforted. "Less clumsy."

The chauffeur stopped the car near the door to the castle, and Dan stepped out. Jerry and Marie burst through the double doors a second later. They asked the general questions about how it was and events that happened, and Dan answered, also telling them about the kiss as they went inside. They had a cup of tea and talked in one of the living rooms for a while until it got too late. Then they all went up to bed, one of the maids offering to clean up the tea kettle and cups.

Once he was alone in his room, Dan's anxiety returned. Knowing exactly what would relieve it, Dan morphed into his ghost form, his suit changing into the black and white jumpsuit of his ghost form. He launched himself upwards and phased through the ceiling, taking off towards Amity and the ghost portal. With his increased speed, he reached the lab and picked up a syringe in no time, and he located Skulker's island in even less.

With Skulker's suit finally fixed, they had a proper sparring session. Even though Skulker tried to kill him just a few months ago, Dan had to admit that he enjoyed his time with Skulker. Not only was he learning about ghosts and the Ghost Zone, but Skulker himself was fascinating. His parents always said that ghosts were nothing but destruction-driven monsters doomed to indulge a specific obsession forever. Little did they know that while ghosts did have their obsessions, they were more human than they seemed.

After the sparring session was over--though Skulker said that he was only testing his repaired suit--Dan was terribly thirsty and went to go take a mouthful of water from the stream on Skulker's island when that very ghost interrupted him. "I might have a better cure for your thirst than that water," he said.

Dan stopped mid-drink and looked up at him. "What?"

"I can't help but notice that you've been growing…" Skulker trailed off and gestured to his mouth.

"Oh, yeah," Dan huffed, putting a finger to one of his newly-grown fangs. "Kinda make it hard to talk."

"I'll bet, but the reason I bring it up is your energy absorption ability. Many ghosts have fangs, but very few have had both fangs _and_ energy absorption," Skulker pointed out. "Those who have had both supposedly had the ability to absorb other ghost's energy through their ectoplasm."

Dan got back to his feet slowly, processing the information. "Are you saying that...technically I'm a vampire?"

Skulker nodded. "A _ghost_ vampire, but yes."

"Huh," Dan hummed. "I guess I'm two types of dead."

That remark made Skulker laugh. "Watching you inject yourself with another ghost's energy is interesting, but watching you drain it would be all the more fascinating."

Dan considered for a moment before nodding. "Let's go find a ghost. A bigger one than normal this time."

The two jumped upwards to go hunting. It didn't take too long to find a proper ghost. It was bigger than any of the ghosts that Dan had drained before. It actually had a distinct form with arms and a ghostly tail.

Having done this together a few times before, Dan and Skulker turned invisible as they approached. Skulker maintained speed while Dan slowed. Skulker rounded the ghost and flanked it before regaining visibility and executing a fake attempt at capturing, driving it towards Dan. Skulker repeatedly fired behind the ghost to herd it closer to Dan, and when it was close enough, Dan regained visibility and decided to try something new. Normally, he would just catch the small ghost in his hands, but it might not work this time due to how big it was. Dan generated a pair of concave shields and pushed them forward. When the ghost was close enough, Dan shoved the two shields together, creating a bubble that prevented the ghost from escaping.

The ghost banged on the walls of the shields that contained it, demanding to be let out, but neither Skulker nor Dan could really hear it. "Well, if you were going to do that, I would have just launched a ghost net at it. Easier," Skulker remarked.

Dan shrugged. "Thought I'd try something new."

The two approached the bubble, and Dan released his concentration on it. As expected, the ghost inside immediately tried to get away, but it didn't get very far. Dan quickly grabbed its neck and held it firmly. This ghost was just as big as he was, so it was a little awkward to contain it, but not difficult. "Now, I assume that I'm supposed to bite its neck?" Dan wondered, more so stalling than anything else. Ghost or not, the thought of biting someone's neck and drinking their blood was a little intimidating.

Skulker nodded and hummed in confirmation, floating back a little to give him space.

Dan shoved down his nerves and only focused on the anxiety within him. He knew exactly what would relieve it, and not having to carry a syringe into the Ghost Zone every time he came would be a relief. Not to mention that this way, he could take more energy from the ghost than with the syringe.

Before he could back out of it, Dan opened his mouth and bit into the side of the ghost's neck. Ectoplasm instantly burst into his mouth. It was cold that it hardly tasted like anything, though there was this sort of metallic, lime taste. So much of it came out at once that he was practically forced to swallow. The second the ectoplasm passed his throat, his core inflamed with the power from the ghost. His entire body involuntarily froze from how sudden and cold it was. It was much faster than even a direct injection. The second after his ghost core flared, some sort of primal instinct took over, and he sucked the ghost's ectoplasm more and more to try and get as much as he could. He only noticed that he had drained the ghost dry when the thing faded from existence in his hands.

Skulker approached as Dan looked up. Skulker gestured at his mouth again. "You got a little…"

Dan jumped and instantly wiped his mouth. Sure enough, his white glove came away stained green.


	7. Bitter Reunions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First person to correctly guess which episode this chapter is based off of gets a cookie.

Over the course of an entire year, Dan practiced with Skulker and paid for him to create devices. With Phantom repeatedly going in and out of his parents' lab, he couldn't use any of his parents' equipment, so he had to get it recreated by Skulker, and together, they came up with a design all their own: it was a box. At first, it was a small, harmless box, but when it got close to a ghost, it expanded and captured them, completely negating their powers. During the test of the prototype, it went off and latched onto Dan, and that's how Skulker discovered that Dan was only half ghost. Luckily, the power cancelling mechanism in the box malfunctioned, so Dan was able to get out. Of course, Skulker wanted to capture him, but Dan easily subdued him with his growing powers. Under the threat of draining his core of power until he could barely cling to his after-life, they maintained their current relationship.

His junior year of school was going excellently. He hadn't failed a test since the end of freshman year. Jerry and Marie continued to be perfectly pleasant and kind people. The only thing that really annoyed him was that every now and then, he had to attend work parties-galas, more like-and occasionally some important business person would come over to the castle, and all three of them and Jerry and Marie's legal team would have to have dinner with them and their legal team. But Dan could deal with it. The galas and the dinners always had good food, and there was something that he could always look forward to afterwards.

He commissioned a ghost containment device from Skulker that he kept in his bathroom. Jerry and Marie never entered there, and all he had to do was hide the small, thermos-shaped device in one of his drawers so the cleaning staff wouldn't find it. Dan kept a number of small ghosts inside the device, and whenever he got bored or his anxiety heightened, he would bring out one of the ghosts and drain it dry. He found that he could consume ghost energy while he was still in human form, but it would force him to transform. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but lately he's been noticing that the small ghosts weren't lasting as long in his system as they used to. Part of him wondered why, but the other part of him didn't care. That part of him was glad that he could take from bigger ghosts that would last longer inside of him.

His powers continued to improve. His duplicates got more and more powerful, and he even learned to teleport and possess people-what Skulker called overshadowing. As his powers grew, he became more known in the Ghost Zone. He had to come up with some sort of ghost name. Turns out that the majority of ghosts use names that are different than when they were alive, but Dan was half alive, so the Dan part would be fine, but what about his last name? He didn't want to use Fenton, and he didn't want to use Marie and Jerry's last name and get them haunted-well, more haunted than usual considering that they're living with a half ghost. He spent a little while brainstorming a ghost name with Skulker, who was a lot more excited about it than Dan thought he would be, though it was clear that he was trying to hide it.

"Well, I shoot plasma rays from my hands, so how about 'Plasmius'," Dan suggested, getting approval from Skulker.

Dan Plasmius. He liked it. It matched the threatening appearance of his ghost form.

Sam and Tucker hadn't contacted him in a while, though Jazz continued to text. She would call occasionally, but Dan ignored those calls and said that she just had bad timing. He always said that he was eating, in class, in the shower, et cetera, and those excuses always seemed to work. Every now and then, he would get calls from the prisons that his parents were in. He always answered them with the hope that they would each be his mother, but sometimes he was disappointed to hear his father's voice on the other end of the line. It was an irritation, but all he had to do to keep his annoyance from being heard in his voice is to drain one of the small ghosts he had while Jack was talking. Just enough to keep him calm.

Jack was on the line now, and Dan's ever-increasing irritation was rising by the second. He actually got out of the warm bath he was taking to grab a ghost from the container in the drawer, pinning the phone between his cheek and his shoulder. Jack was doing the usual, babbling on and on about ghosts and asking him if he'd seen the ghost of the Dairy King yet. Dan delivered an "Uh-huh" every now and then to make it seem like he was actually listening. Once he had gotten the ghost, Dan sunk back into the hot water of the tub with the thing trapped in his hand. "No, I haven't seen the Dairy King yet. Sorry," Dan sighed. It wasn't a lie. He hadn't seen or spoken to the Dairy King, but he had sensed a low level ghost floating around the castle. Dan didn't mind. He was only around occasionally, and he didn't bother Dan at all. He held the struggling, little ghost closer to his mouth, his heart beating faster in anticipation of the powered ectoplasm dripping into his core.

"Aw, well that's disappointing. And while ghosts are great, that's not why I called today," Jack said.

"Oh, yeah? What is it?" he wondered, his voice pleasant as he stared at the ghost wriggling in his hand.

"Your mother's and my sentences…" Jack's voice hesitated as Dan opened his mouth, his fangs readily extending when the ghost brushed his lips. "They're up tomorrow."

Dan froze, his grip on the ghost loosening instantly in his shock. He hardly noticed when the thing splashed into the water of the tub with a squeak. "Really?" he breathed.

"I know! It's exciting, isn't it?" Jack laughed. Dan couldn't even respond. "Aw, you're so excited that you can't even speak! Well, you don't have to respond right now, but we'll be seeing you soon, alright? I love you, Son!"

After a beat, the click came from Dan's phone that let him know that Jack had hung up. Dan slowly pulled the phone away from his ear and folded it closed. He put it down on the side of the large tub and sat there simply staring at the wall.

That witless oaf was being let go? His mother never deserved to be locked up in the first place, so it was good that she was being released, but that idiot should stay locked up. He could destroy the world at any moment by tripping. His entire family was in danger whenever he picked up a butter knife. Dan _had_ to get rid of him. Despite wanting to distance himself from Jazz and Uncle Vlad, he still cared for them. He had to get rid of his father before he hurt the rest of their family.

* * *

It was easy to plan. A party to celebrate his parent's release. Since Jack thought the Dairy King was floating around this castle, it would be simple to lure them here. Then all he would have to do is overshadow Jack and make them all think he was crazy. Dan wanted to get rid of Jack, but he didn't have the heart to kill him, so he had to get him locked up permanently. A mental hospital seemed fitting. Though ghosts were a well-known thing in Amity Park, to the rest of the world, ghosts were still just a silly thing found in scary movies. If a psychiatric hospital got a hold of Jack, they would never let him go because of his endless blatherings about ghosts.

Jerry and Marie were reluctant to have Dan's parents in the castle, but Dan promised to have a social worker there. Their reluctance wasn't that they thought Dan would leave them-he was almost eighteen anyways. They just didn't want Dan to get hurt. They did eventually agree under the condition that two social workers attended the party rather than one.

Dan steadily increased his contact with Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Vlad so that he could plan the party. It wouldn't be big with just them, so Dan also invited several acquaintances from school. They would call him their friend, but Dan didn't feel that they were that close yet. He just wanted to make the party bigger to create the most witnesses possible. He wanted Jack to be seen when he overshadowed the man.

The only potential kink in this plan was that he's never actually seen Jack ghost hunt. If he was as incompetent at ghost hunting as he was everything else, it would be easy to execute his plan, but if he was better than Dan thought, he wanted to be prepared to mentally overcome him. It was likely the ghost would want to be paid, so he pulled out a stack of $100 from his drawer and shoved that into his pocket.

Dan had several pictures of his entire family, but only one was on display. He opened the back of the frame and took out the picture, staring at it for a second. For a brief moment, he felt guilty. He missed the way things were in this picture. Simple. No ghosts, a caring mother and a bumbling father, and no superpowers. But it was impossible to go back. To save the rest of his family, he had to get rid of his father.

In one quick movement, Dan tore off the corner of the photo, removing Jack's face. With the torn photo in hand, Dan transformed and took off through the ceiling. Dan teleported about halfway to Amity and then flew the rest of the way. Because he was half human, he could only teleport so far. He couldn't breathe when he teleported. Full ghosts obviously didn't have to worry about that, and Dan couldn't help but admit that he was a little jealous of that fact.

When he finally spotted Fenton Works from the sky, Dan turned invisible and kept an eye out for Phantom. The ghost clearly had some sort of obsession with Amity Park and wanted to protect it from other ghosts. Dan didn't have the time or mental energy to fight the guy right now. Especially since he had to be in and out of the Ghost Zone as quick as possible. His parents would be home and reactivate the ghost defenses any minute. Not to mention that it was almost dinner time, and he didn't want to get caught because he skipped out on dinner.

Dan phased through the walls and floor that separated him from the portal and quickly activated it. He barely waited for the doors to open before he was through them. Rapidly finding Skulker, Dan dropped down onto the island. "Who do you suggest would be a good mental competency test?" he wondered as he landed.

"Skipping the pleasantries today?" Skulker remarked as he tossed a piece of glowing meat to one of his various caged ghosts. He turned to look at Dan. "Why do you ask?"

"My father is being released from prison, and I want to overshadow him," Dan explained as the caged ghost ripped into the glowing meat. "I want to make everyone who sees him think he's crazy so that he gets locked up forever, but I want to get a reading on how mentally competent he is so that I'm prepared to overcome him."

"If your goal is to get rid of your father, why not just kill him?" Skulker suggested. "I assume he's human. Humans are easier to destroy than ghosts."

Dan didn't answer. He didn't want to seem weak in front of Skulker.

At his lack of response, Skulker shrugged. "Your dad, your reasons, I guess." He picked up another piece of glowing meat and tossed it into another cage. "There's this team of three vultures. They're not very powerful individually, but they're somewhat difficult to capture when they work together. They would work well for a test."

Dan nodded. "Where can I find them?"

After tossing another piece of meat into yet another occupied cage, Skulker put his bucket of ghost meat down and came a few steps closer to Dan. Skulker pointed up towards a landmass that was above them and a few miles out. "They usually hang around there," he said. "I don't know what their relationship is, but I think they're nesting there."

"Great. Thanks."

Skulker nodded. "Let me know how it goes!" he shouted as Dan took off again.

Dan quickly arrived at the landmass and scanned the whole thing. It wasn't long until he found a series of three nests in the trees littered with glowing, green feathers. "Hey!" a voice with a thick Russian accent shouted. "What're you doing here?"

Dan turned around to see three vultures flapping their wings as they floated. They all wore fezzes and sunglasses. Dan was curious as to why, but he shoved his curiosity down. He didn't have a lot of time. "I have a job for you," he said.

"What kind of job?" the middle vulture asked, his defined Adam's apple bobbing as he spoke.

Since he spoke first, Dan arbitrarily labeled him as number one. "There's this ghost hunter on Earth, and I want you to test him."

"Test him how?" the one on the left wondered, his buck teeth hanging over his beak.

"I'm planning to overshadow him, so I need to know how mentally capable he is," Dan clarified. "You came recommended."

The third vulture-the only one of them who wasn't wearing sunglasses-finally spoke up. "I think we can do that, but we won't be doing it free of charge."

The first vulture added, "And we need to know what he looks like. We can't go hunting without a target."

Dan pulled out the torn photograph of his father's face and held it out to them. The first vulture took the picture from his hand, holding onto it with his clawed foot. "His name is Jack Fenton," Dan further added, "and he lives in Amity Park."

"Right," the fist vulture said, lowering his foot. "And payment?"

Dan removed the stack of cash from his pocket. "You'll get half of this now, and the other half once the job is done." He cut the stack in half and offered the fifty dollars to them.

"What?" the second vulture exclaimed. "That's barely enough for a week's worth of food these days!"

Dan knew that wasn't accurate, and he didn't have time to haggle with these guys. He shrugged and put the money back into his pocket. "Never mind then. I can always get someone else." He turned around and began to leave.

"Wait, wait, wait!" the first vulture urged, getting Dan to stop where he was. "Make it $150, and we'll do it."

The increase in payment wasn't a problem, so Dan nodded and pulled the stack of fifty back out. "You'll get fifty now and the hundred when it's finished. Deal?"

The first vulture nodded. "Deal."

After a brief discussion of the date they would test Jack, Dan took off. He raced through the Zone until he went through the portal. He closed it quickly and then turned invisible. He phased through the ceilings and walls until he was outside again.

Right then and there, both a car and a taxi pulled up to the house. The car slipped into the driveway, and the taxi stopped on the street outside the house. Jazz and Vlad came out of the car, and his parents came out of the taxi.

Dan froze at seeing his mother for the first time in three years. She looked different, and it wasn't a good different. Her eyes were sad.

"Jazzy-pants!" Jack shouted as Jazz ran up to them. Jack fully embraced her, and Dan rolled his eyes.

It was almost dinner, and he didn't want to get caught. Dan concentrated briefly and teleported away.

Vlad arbitrarily glance behind him. Some part of him seemed to sense that something had vanished, but he quickly dismissed it. If it was a ghost, his ghost sense would have gone off. He looked back at Jazz, Maddie, and Jack as they reunited, silently watching. He didn't want to interrupt them.

It took a while-not that Vlad blamed them-but eventually they let go. "Hey," Jazz sniffed, wiping her eyes with her thumb. "Danny has made plans for you, us, Sam, and Tucker to see him out in Wisconsin."

"Really?" Maddie exclaimed. "That would be great!"

"Yeah?" Jazz gasped, still catching her breath from all the happy tears. "It'll be a party in the castle he lives in."

"The castle of the Dairy King himself?" Jack yelled. "Danny was enough of an incentive to go, but now there's no way I'm skipping out!"

The three of them went inside the house, and Vlad followed them, unsure if he should interrupt their happy reunion with business. They asked Jazz how college was and how Danny was doing. "College is great! Classes are fine, and my last exam went fine. As far as I know, Danny's good, too, but he told me that he likes to be called 'Dan' now."

"Dan? He never corrected me when I called him," Jack said.

"Me neither," Maddie agreed. "Why would he change his nickname?"

"Well, he's almost eighteen. It's not unusual for kids to go through changes like that close to adulthood," Jazz explained. "Sometimes they want to move on from their old lives and start new. Everything in his life changed so suddenly that his change in nickname didn't surprise me."

All four of them sat in the kitchen together and ordered pizza for dinner. They had a pleasant night together for the first time in three years. Jazz stayed the night in her old room and managed to talk her parents out of calling Danny by reminding them of how late it was. Jack and Maddie couldn't wait to get into their own bed. Vlad felt terrible, but he held them back anyways. This was too important.

"What is it, Vlad?" Maddie asked.

"It's the lab."

The three of them raced down to the lab and clicked on the light. Jack and Maddie checked everything repeatedly. "I can't remember the exact numbers, but it only appears that a couple or syringes are missing," Maddie pointed out.

"You're right," Vlad agreed.

"What's up, Vladdie?" Jack wondered. "You wouldn't have mentioned it if you didn't think it was important."

"Every now and then when I would come and check out the Ghost Zone, the portal would already be open," Vlad clarified. "And since that started, ghost activity in Amity has been increasing."

"So either there's a human in Amity that knows about the portal or a ghost figured out how to open it from the other side," Jack reasoned.

"That's possible, but…" Vlad trailed off.

"What?" Maddie wondered.

"Danny got hurt by accidentally _activating_ your _ghost_ portal," Vlad slowly began. "Our proto-portal accidentally activated and blasted _me_ with ghost energy making me a half ghost, right?"

"Are you implying that Danny is a half ghost?" Maddie scoffed.

"It makes sense."

"No it doesn't. If Danny became a half ghost that day, he would have told us," Jack countered.

"Are you sure?" Vlad cautioned.

"Of course we are! We love him!" Jack insisted.

"The only thing you guys ever talked about was how much you wanted to dissect ghosts and how evil they are," Vlad reminded. "He might have been intimidated into staying silent."

Maddie waved a dismissive hand. "The portal back then was too unstable," she pointed out. "This one is much more contained. I'm sure that Danny is fine and still completely human."

* * *

The two weeks flew by. It was too risky for Dan to return to Amity and use the portal. Because of that, he couldn't get a hold of sufficient ghosts. The small ghosts he kept in his bathroom were gone. He couldn't take his mind off the anxiety that made his entire body as taut as a wire. He wasn't sure if that was because of the lack of ghost energy or the fact that he was actually inviting his father to come to the castle.

Jazz told him that they were on their way two days before the party. They were driving, so they were set to arrive the afternoon the day before it began. He had one day to prepare, and the fact that Fenton Works was now empty wouldn't leave his mind. The portal was unguarded. Dan had been feeling terribly sick the past few days, and the only thing he could think about was the world of ghosts just waiting to be drained.

Dan fetched the thermos-like device from his drawer that night and transformed. He teleported almost all the way to Amity, and when he arrived, he was about to phase through the roof when a pain in his chest made him cry out. Dan crash landed onto the roof. He laid there on his side, his chest aching. Something inside of his chest, his core, was spasming. He could barely breathe, but just as soon as the episode started, it stopped.

Dan took a relieved breath and sat up, putting a hand to his chest. "What was that?" he muttered to himself.

He caught his breath relatively quickly, and once he did, he was fine. Dan shrugged, taking a mental note to figure it out later.

Dan didn't waste any more time and dove through the roof and floors until he reached the basement lab. He opened the portal and raced inside. He hardly waited. The first ghost he found was a green-skinned, white-haired lady in a hairnet and an apron, but he hardly cared. Some sort of primal instinct was driving him, now. He was barely thinking.

He charged towards the lady, readying a pair of pink blasts in his hands. He fired one ahead of her, scaring her. She instinctively jumped and turned towards him, but when she spotted Dan racing towards her, she turned back around. Dan fired his second blast and increased his speed. The second blast made the lady hesitate, and that was all the opening Dan needed. He grabbed her and didn't wait. His teeth automatically dug into her neck, and the powered ectoplasm flowed freely into his mouth. His core swelled with the power contained inside. He would have sighed with relief if his mouth wasn't already occupied. He hardly noticed the ghost's struggles in his arms as they slowed. He drained it faster and faster, continuing to press the ghost further into him in an instinctive attempt to get more. He was pressing her close so hard that when she disappeared from existence, his hand went straight into his teeth.

Dan hissed as his fangs pierced his glove and hand. He pulled his hand away to find the small, green-leaking cut, but it healed itself as he watched. He knew he had enhanced regenerative abilities, but they were never that fast. An interesting effect.

His core was hammering, and his breath was short. He needed more.

Dan spent that entire night hunting, draining ghosts dry until he felt satisfied. Once he was finished, he used the thermos-shaped device he commissioned from Skulker to capture several smaller ghosts and then left the Zone.

* * *

Dan woke up the next morning quite late. Marie had to wake him up. Good thing it was a weekend. He hadn't drained that many ghosts in one sitting before. The results were amazing. After the initial high wore off, a calm and almost lazy feeling took him over as if he had eaten too much at Thanksgiving dinner.

Once Marie had left his room, he checked his phone. He was greeted by a series of missed calls and texts from his parents, sister, friends, and Vlad, though the calls were mostly from his parents. He arbitrarily sent a group text to them all saying that he had overslept and was about to take a shower, which was the first full truth he's said to any of them in a while.

After his shower, he got dressed, ate breakfast and then returned to his room to get the little homework he had completed, but what he found was a trio of vultures floating in his room. "What?" he demanded.

"We tried to do what you asked, but we were interrupted by an interloper," the first vulture explained.

"What interloper?" Dan spat.

"Some fancy-pants ghost man in a lab coat," the vulture clarified.

Dan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Phantom," he muttered to himself. He looked back up at the group of ghosts with a shrug. "Sorry, but I guess you don't get the rest of your payment."

"What?" all three of them exclaimed.

"We did everything that you asked!" the first one justified. "So what if we were interfered with!"

Dan sighed in annoyance. "Well, he will be coming here today, so if you want more payment, do it tonight. But I will be reducing your payment."

The first vulture protested, pointing at Dan with one of his sharp talons. "Now, hold on a second, mister-"

Dan glared at them, deliberately extending his fangs and turning his eyes red in threat.

The first vulture faltered and dropped his complaint. "Fine," he said, his voice still sharp. "We'll stick around here."

The team of vultures turned intangible and drifted through the walls. Dan rolled his eyes and entered his room's study.

A couple of hours passed, and Dan finally completed the work he needed. And even though they were a little late, a text from Jazz dinged on his phone that said they were pulling up to the castle.

A second later, the sound of the heavy front door scraping open reached his sensitive hearing. His mother was here. Unfortunately, that also meant that Jack was here, too. But he could power through it. He just had to remember what he was going to do tomorrow night.

Dan got to his feet and slipped his phone into his pocket. He left his room and quickly ended up on the landing at the top of the stairs above the castle's foyer. He leaned forward and rested his arms on the railing as his parents, sister, two friends and Vlad entered through the doors. They were greeted by Jerry, Marie and the two social workers they informed of the event. They came in with their overnight bags, introducing themselves as they placed them on the floor. Marie turned around with her mouth open when she spotted Dan at the top of the stairs. "I was just about to call you," she said.

Dan's family and friend's looked up. At seeing him, they all smiled. Dan stood back up and went down the stairs. "It's great to see you all," he greeted.

The second that he reached the bottom of the stairs, Jazz embraced him with a suffocating hug. Dan hugged her back. "You got taller," she laughed as she backed away.

"And you filled out," Tucker noticed.

Dan chuckled. "Hey, man." The two high-fived each other.

Maddie looked to the two social workers in the room and asked, "May we give our son a hug?"

One of them nodded.

Maddie instantly took her son into her arms, and Dan readily hugged her back. He had been consumed with contempt for his father that he hardly missed his mother, but her presence opened those doors, and the calm, rested feeling that had been with him all day cracked. Once his mother let go, Jack roughly grabbed him. Dan managed to suppress an irritated growl by thinking of last night and this morning. When Jack finally released him, Dan walked up to Uncle Vlad, and the two high-fived. Vlad was always weird about hugs, not that Dan minded.

The group spent the day in the castle simply hanging out and catching up. Dan managed to keep a perfectly pleasant demeanor for the most part, but he struggled to hold onto it as time went on. After dinner, they all decided to settle down with popcorn in the theater room, but before the film started playing, Sam asked to speak to him.

Dan got up and followed her to the doorway where she stopped and turned to him. She kept her voice low but didn't hesitate to ask, "What on Earth is wrong with you?"

Dan stopped. "What?" he whispered. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Sam stated. "We hardly talk anymore, and you changed your nickname. You've _clearly_ been exercising too much, and compared to usual, Danny, you've been quiet."

"I nearly died, Sam," Dan sighed, coming up with an explanation on the fly. "You and Tucker were there when it happened. Jazz, too. My parents built the machine that nearly killed me. When I was in Amity, I could barely look at any of you without thinking of it. It hurt, Sam. I know I'm being a little awkward right now, but I can't get the accident out of my head."

Sam's tense shoulders slumped, and her eyebrows creased in sympathy. "I'm sorry, Danny-Dan. Sorry." Dan shrugged it off. "It was just such a sudden change. And you know that it wasn't your father's fault, right? He wasn't even there."

Dan nodded, straining to bite back a counter argument. "I know that, cognitively, but that doesn't change how it feels."

Sam put a hand on his shoulder. "You know you can talk to me, right?" she confirmed.

"I know."

"Okay." Sam pulled him into a gentle hug.

Dan's heart clenched as he slowly wrapped his arms around her. He wasn't sure how he should feel. He didn't regret cutting himself off from her, but now that she was here, he realized how much he had missed her.

The two broke apart after a while, and then they went back to join the others.

After the movie was over, they all went to bed. Dan's parents both gave him big hugs goodnight. The social workers were allowed to stay the night, too. Dan spent the night in anticipation, pacing his room. It wasn't till his ghost sense went off that he calmed down. The ghosts felt familiar. It was those three vultures. With a little concentration, Dan remotely located where they were within the house.

Dan morphed and turned invisible. He found the three quickly. "Hey! What gives?" the first vulture exclaimed in reaction to something that Dan couldn't see. He didn't sense any other ghost in the house except for that Dairy King. What could they be complaining about?

Another ghost intangibly popped up through the floor, one that Dan instantly recognized. Phantom. He faced the vultures and smirked. "Hi, guys. Remember me?" he said, his voice sarcastic as he slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand.

What was Phantom doing here? And why didn't Dan sense his presence? Either way, he was an anomaly that could interfere with his plan to lock Jack up. He had to subdue him.

Dan regained visibility, and the three vultures screamed in either surprise or fear. He wasn't sure which. The three ghosts all disappeared in separate directions, flying through the walls.

"Okay. That was almost too easy," Phantom muttered, lowering his fist.

"Bright ghost," Dan said, making Phantom jump and turn around.

Phantom glided slightly closer to Dan as he remarked, "Oh, well. I was aiming for the birds, but you'll do."

Dan raised an incredulous eyebrow.

Phantom threw a wild punch towards Dan, but he easily caught it. Dan threw the ghost, slamming him into the wall. The stone cracked under the sudden impact. Phantom slid down the wall, dropping onto a decorative table that sat in the hall.

"Woah, fast," the ghost breathed. "Alright. Better stop fooling around."

Phantom slowly got into a crouch and then launched himself towards Dan. Dan reached out and grabbed Phantom around the throat, holding him up to eye level. Phantom grabbed at his hand, but it didn't affect Dan. He threw the ghost down on the ground, looking down at him. Dan raised his hands in a big, dramatic shrug. "My vultures were supposed to bring the big idiot to me, but you'll do," he mocked. He crossed his arms. "Vladdie Phantom, right?"

"You...you know me?" Phantom stuttered.

Dan had to contain the damage. This wasn't technically his house, and he didn't want to destroy the place. He could only clean up so much destruction, and he didn't want the party being called off because Jerry and Marie thought there was a robber in the castle.

"Of course I know you," Dan said, intangibly backing up and phasing through the wall behind him and into the study beyond.

Of course, Phantom followed after him. Once he arrived, Dan finally got to mock him. When Dan officially discovered his powers, he couldn't believe that any ghost would use their powers the way Phantom did. "You're the ghost who uses his powers for ' _good_ '. How quaint," Dan dismissed, rapidly approaching him. "Aren't you going to try to shove me into your ridiculous thermos?"

Phantom backed off, floating slightly below him, now. "I...I don't want to fight you," the black-haired ghost said.

"No, no you don't," Dan assured.

Dan raised his hand and sent a pink ectoplasmic ray towards Phantom, catching him in the stomach. The blast sent Phantom careening backwards. He bounced along a table and ended up crashing into one of the bookshelves, throwing several books onto the floor.

Phantom instantly got up and took off into the air. "Get away!" he shouted, sending a green ectoplasmic ray towards Dan.

Dan easily conjured a pink shield to block it. The blast crashed into the shield, leaving Dan unharmed. "Ah, a green ectoplasmic energy blast," Dan noted.

Phantom glared at him and rapidly fired a series of four blasts that each collided with Dan's shield. Dan rolled his eyes. "So low-level." For how long Phantom has been around, Dan expected him to be more powerful. Did the ghost not practice his powers at all?

Phantom looked down at his green-glowing hands. His expression was hard, but his eyes were afraid.

Looking to end the fight quickly, Dan mockingly wondered, "Tell me, ghost, can you do this yet?"

Dan produced three duplicates around Phantom, leaving him one gap which he automatically backed through. "No," he said, his voice shaking. "I can't. How are you doing all this?"

"Lots of practice," Dan and his duplicates answered, each of their hands glowing pink with readied blasts. "Which you, unfortunately, have no time for."

Dan and his duplicates each sent their blasts towards Phantom. The combined, four-way blast was so powerful that when Phantom dropped to the ground, he was smoking. Phantom looked up at him, his eyes afraid.

Phantom has been around so long that his core must contain a lot of power even if he hadn't unlocked it yet. Dan raised his hand towards Phantom, his core suddenly craving the power of the other ghost. He threw several blasts at Phantom, continuing his bombardment even after the ghost got up in an attempt to fight back. Dan easily blocked Phantom's stray, unfocused blasts and sent one last pink blast to his stomach that sent him flying backwards. The ghost managed to turn intangible at the last second to slip through the wall.

Dan followed after the ghost and found him lying on the ground, struggling to keep his eyes open. When they finally closed, a white ring appeared around his waist. The ring split in half, and each half traveled in opposite directions. When they completed their journey who was left behind wasn't Phantom.

"Ph-Phantom is…Uncle Vlad?" Dan muttered.

Dan was too late. Jack had already hurt another member of his family. Twenty years ago by the look of it. Dan hadn't revealed himself to Phantom, so he picked Vlad up and carried him to the guest room he had chosen that night. He put him in his bed and put the blankets over him. With any luck, Vlad would think that it was just a dream, though he doubted it.

Dan morphed himself back into his human form as he watched the unconscious Vlad. Why wasn't he more powerful in his ghost form? If Vlad is a half ghost like Dan, shouldn't he have the energy absorption ability, too? Not to mention that he would have had to go through a lot of pain to become this way, and it was most likely Jack's fault. Why was Vlad still friends with him? And what made him a half ghost? Dan knew that they worked on ghost devices in college together, but which one of them made Vlad like Dan?

And most importantly, why couldn't Dan sense him? Dan got closer to Vlad, concentrating on his ghost sense. The closer he got, the more a faint cold in his core grew. It wasn't powerful enough to make that old blue mist come out of his mouth at all. Either Phantom wasn't nearly as powerful as he appeared to be or Vlad's human half was interfering with his ghost sense. If the second one was the case, it was good for Dan. It meant that Vlad wouldn't sense him either.

Vlad suddenly twitched and muttered, "No." Dan immediately backed away, debating on whether he should leave or not. Another "no" came from Vlad, but it was much louder than before. "Get away!" he shouted, suddenly sitting up and throwing the blankets off. He looked around, confused. "Huh? What happened?" he wondered.

This was Dan's chance to see how much the man remembered. "I was going to ask you the same question, Uncle Vlad," he said, making Vlad jump and look at him. "I heard you down the hall."

After a beat, Vlad stuttered in answer, "I-I must have been worn out from the long car trip and had a weird dream. Sorry if I scared you, Danny-Dan."

Dan waved a dismissive hand. "What's a little scare between us, right? I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Vlad nodded. "I'm alright. And come to think of it, should you even be in here? Wouldn't those social workers disapprove?" he pointed out.

"They're only here to make sure that my parents don't hurt me, considering what they were arrested for. You weren't involved in that, so…" Dan reminded.

"Alright, then. You should probably head back to bed."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Dan agreed. "See you in the morning."

Dan didn't wait for a response and left Vlad's room, quietly closing the door behind him. He was still unsure how much Vlad remembered, and he didn't know whose side he was on either. He didn't want to hurt Vlad, especially if he was the only other person like Dan in the world, so he would give him an ultimatum. End his friendship with Jack or be imprisoned by Skulker for the rest of his life.

Once Dan got back to the library he and Phantom had fought in, he took out his phone and dialed Skulker. It took a few rings, but eventually he did pick up. "What?" the ghost groaned. "Are half ghosts nocturnal or something? It's three in the morning."

"I might have a half ghost for you."

* * *

Skulker found his way out of the Ghost Zone and to Wisconsin fairly quickly. Dan found him looking around in the hallway near his room after breakfast. "Get in here," Dan ordered, getting Skulker's attention. "There's a pair of ghost hunters in here." He opened the door to his room. "Do you want to get captured?"

Skulker floated into Dan's room and closed the door behind him. "What did you mean last night when you said that you _might_ have a half ghost for me?" Skulker demanded.

"He's an honorary family member, so I don't want to see him hurt," Dan explained. "We will capture him here tonight, and I will give him an ultimatum. If he makes the wrong choice, feel free to hunt and capture him. Keep him forever in a cage for all I care. Just don't kill him."

"'Honorary family member'?" Skulker repeated.

"He's a friend of my parents from their college days," Dan clarified. "They just stayed close. So do you want to hear my plan, or not?"

He and Skulker couldn't spend much time preparing due to Dan still having to hang around with his family and friends, but after a few hours, the people Dan knew from school and Jerry and Marie's galas arrived. They had all apparently invited their own people to the party, and he didn't mind. The more witnesses the better. When the sun started to set, the caterer that Jerry had insisted on arrived and began serving dinner, and music started to play, indicating that the party had officially started.

Dan mingled here and there, greeting the people he knew from school and the galas, and they introduced him to their friends, but eventually, he spotted Vlad. He was standing alone, a look of concentration contorting his face. Now was his chance.

Dan casually walked up to him. "Hey, Uncle Vlad," he greeted.

The concentration left his face, and he looked down at Dan. "Hey. Did you still manage to get to sleep last night?"

Dan nodded. "Yeah. The only problem is that I was so scatterbrained this morning that I left the present I got for my parents in my room? Can you go get it? Please?"

"Of course."

"Great!" Dan thanked. "My room is just up one flight of stairs. Turn left and it's the third door down on the right side of the hall."

Vlad nodded and walked off. Dan watched him, a thankful smile on his face in case Vlad turned around. Once Vlad turned the corner, though, the smile dropped. Dan scanned the room for his mother as some 80s song came on over the speakers. He found his mother standing with her arms crossed, her mouth pulled down in annoyance as she watched Jack jump up and down to the beat of the song.

* * *

Vlad found Dan's room quite easily. He found the door unlocked and entered, he felt somewhat guilty for entering his room when he wasn't there, but his mind wasn't really on what he was doing. He couldn't stop thinking about that ghost from last night. He kept circling back to the same few questions: Who was he? Why didn't his ghost sense go off when he got close to him, and how was he so powerful?

He had heard of a new ghost in the Ghost Zone that had gained power too rapidly to be natural. Many ghosts were afraid of him, and several other well-known ghosts like the Lunch Lady had gone missing. Vlad wondered if the incidents were related.

Vlad glanced around Dan's large room, even checked the study and closet but didn't find any gift. "Strange," he muttered to himself.

He was about to leave and tell Dan that he couldn't find it when he spotted something on the bedside table. He approached it and picked up the family picture. Why was Jack's face torn off? "Wait."

Vlad saved the picture from the other night and pulled it out of his pocket. He placed it on top of the glass where Jack's face was torn off, and sure enough, it was a perfect fit.

The picture those vultures were carrying came from this frame? Did that mean Danny ordered a ghostly hit on his own father?

A sudden heat poured into his back: his ghost sense. Vlad instantly transformed, ready to face whatever ghost was here.

"Interesting transformation," a deep voice praised.

Something struck Vlad in the back and shoved him into the wall. Vlad grunted with the impact and tried to get up. The second he attempted to move, the net shocked him, making him cry out.

He looked up to try and find the source of the net. A ghost extracted itself from the shadows. Vlad recognized the ghost, but he never personally delt with him. "Skulker?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

"What I usually do," Skulker answered. "Hunting the rare and unique."

"Well, you're not hunting me," Vlad defied, bracing for the pain.

Vlad sent out a small blast of energy that cut the net holding him. Finally released, he launched himself towards Skulker, who stepped quickly to the side. Landing on the ground, Vlad readied a green blast as Skulker tossed something towards him. Vlad glanced at the black, green-glowing box, confused. As second later, the box expanded, wrapping around him.

Vlad instantly attempted to turn intangible and phase out of the box, but nothing happened. He tried again and again, but he received the same results of nothing. He looked back up at Skulker who smirked at him and pressed a button on the wrist of his suit. Vlad screamed at the sudden burning pain as the box rocked from side to side. When the pain gratefully ended, he found himself human again.

Skulker grabbed Vlad by the hair, holding him in place. He lowered his hand near Vlad's throat, and a glowing green sword extended out of his wrist. Vlad laughed awkwardly. "Nice blade."

"You like it?" Skulker wondered. "I've had some upgrades."

Skulker brought the glowing sword ever closer to Vlad's throat, making his heart beat faster with how dangerously sharp it looked.

"Stop it!" Dan ordered as he entered the room. "I didn't ask you to kill him. Your work is done here."

"But-" Dan cut him off by holding up the $200 he asked for the use of his device and capturing service. "Fine then." Skulker retracted his sword and snatched the money from Dan's hand. "But you _better_ keep your word."

Dan nodded as Skulker extended his mechanical wings and took off intangibly through the ceiling.

"Skulker...this box...Dan, I don't understand," Vlad said from his prone position.

"Of course not. We haven't properly spoken in-what? A year?" Dan pointed out. "And why would you suspect me at all of being that powerful ghost from last night when my human form is nowhere near that tall and not even in college yet." He approached the box that Vlad was stuck in. Thank goodness he and Skulker had perfected the design a few months ago. "I sent those vultures from last night to test my father's skills. Imagine my surprise when I find you: the first human-ghost hybrid that his foolishness created."

"Ghost from last night?" Vlad repeated.

Deciding to finally end Vlad's confusion, Dan called forth his ghost half, the black transformation rings around his waist changing his casual suit into the black and white jumpsuit of his ghost form.

Vlad glared at him. "I'm goin' ghost!" he cried, only to look around in confusion when nothing happened.

"You have a battle cry, hilarious," Dan laughed. "I assume it was Jack's idea. And to answer your unspoken question, the reason you can't 'go ghost', is this." He gestured to the box that Vlad was trapped in. "A spectral energy neutralizer that was designed by Skulker and paid for by me. As long as you're contained within that box, you're as human as my idiot father."

"Let me out!" Vlad demanded.

"Why?" Dan wondered, turning his back on Vlad. "So you can go back to stumbling through your life of superheroics with barely working powers? Powers, by the way, that I have been perfecting and training in nonstop for three full years. I know it doesn't sound like much compared to your twenty years, but" He turned back to Vlad and summoned green energy, forming a shield in front of him. "clearly, I am already more powerful than you, so obviously, there is some secret about these powers of ours that I know and you don't." Dan dropped the shield and summoned two duplicates on either side of him. "I can train you and teach you everything I know." The duplicates went back inside of him. "And all you'd have to do is renounce your friendship with my idiot father."

"Wow," Vlad breathed. "These powers have clearly turned you into what your father would call 'one seriously crazed-up Fruit Loop'. That is _never_ going to happen."

"Yes, well," Dan sighed. "Once Jack is out of the way, we'll see how you feel."

Dan waved his hand and teleported out of the room, leaving Vlad alone with his thoughts. He was disappointed by Vlad's choice, but he didn't want to turn him over to Skulker. He saw how those creatures were kept. They were physically healthy, but their spaces were so cramped that it couldn't be enjoyable to stay there.

He shook his head to banish those thoughts as he invisibly arrived in the main room where the party was being held. He floated there, watching Jack for a moment. One of the social workers was making small talk with him, and he was clearly bored. After a moment, the social worker had had enough and demanded, "Am I boring you, Jack?"

Jack lifted up his head. "Frankly, yes."

For all his father's faults, at least he spoke his mind. And that was exactly what was going to keep him locked up.

Dan turned intangible and floated into Jack's body, his sudden entrance making the man drop his cup. Jack's consciousness struggled against him, but he was easy to subdue.

Fully in control of Jack's body, Dan said, straining to keep his amused anticipation out of his voice, "So what do you say we liven up this shindig?"

"What?" the social worker wondered.

Dan picked her up and threw her across the room. She crashed into the punch table, tipping it over. Dan's ghostly strength was influencing the situation, but Jack was stronger than he looked.

"Jack!" an easily recognizable voice scolded. "What's the matter with you?"

Dan turned around. "Why Maddie didn't you know I'd turn on you? That I'm a danger to all of you?"

A sudden surge in Jack's consciousness threw him off. Jack managed to fight past Dan and take control again. He grabbed Maddie's shoulders and whispered to her, the strain of the mental battle clearly heard in his voice. "Ghost. Overpowering me. Run." Finally shoving Jack's mind back down, Dan took back control, but the struggle between them caused Dan's ghostly aura to expand around Jack as he managed to deliver one last, "Run!" as they began to float in the air.

Dan didn't care what he had to do. He just had to make Jack look like he was a danger to himself and others. He threw tables, made people scatter. He couldn't deny that he was enjoying it, but he still didn't want to actually hurt anyone, so he never targeted people. He just made it look like he was by throwing various things-tables, chairs, plates, food-near them. "If you live to tell the tale remember to say that big, old, fat, Jack Fenton did this to you!" he shouted.

"Guess again little boy!" Vlad's voice countered.

Dan looked towards the source and found Vlad in ghost form racing towards him. He turned intangible at the last second and plunged through Jack's body. Vlad somehow latched onto Dan's ghost form and pushed him out of Jack's body. The pair of them remained intangible and went through the nearby wall and into one of the living rooms. Jack's final declaration managed to reach Dan's sensitive hearing: "Nobody uses Jack Fenton as a human meat puppet!"

Dan would have laughed if he wasn't so preoccupied. When the two broke apart, Vlad threw a punch at Dan who drifted upwards to dodge it. He dropped down on Vlad's other side and delivered a hard kick to his back, throwing him away.

"Vlad, stop," Dan ordered. "Think about the things I could show you, the doors I could open for you. You, Vladdie Phantom, and I, Dan Plasmius. Together we could do anything."

"Forget it, _Danny_ ," Vlad snapped. "You've changed too much. At this point, not even the money of your rich, adoptive parents could convince any of us to be on your side." Vlad threw two twin blasts of green energy towards Dan, as if emphasizing his point.

Dan stretched out his hand and caught the energy, temporarily passing it through his core. His core trembled as it passed, wanting to hang onto the energy, but he didn't let it stay. He passed the energy to his other hand and returned it towards Vlad, who conjured a green dome around him that blocked the blast.

"I know who you are," Vlad reminded. "I'll tell you mother. I'll tell everyone."

"And so will I," Dan shrugged. "Honestly, Vlad, if you expose me, you expose yourself."

A honking sounded, and a second later, the Fenton Family RV crashed through the wall. Vlad managed to jump out of the way, and Dan glided upwards, landing on top of the vehicle. Before he dodged, Dan saw that Jack was the one driving with his mother next to him. He couldn't believe that that oaf would deliberately drive through a wall, putting his mother's life in danger.

"Mind if I borrow you?" he mockingly wondered, intangibly reaching through the RV's roof and grabbing his mother by the arms.

He pulled her out of there and kept her close. His ghost form looked plenty more adult than his human form, so he was aware of how it looked, but he would do anything to get her away from Jack's mistakes. "Let go of me!" she protested, struggling against him with a hardened glare.

"Never again," he breathed.

Jack burst from the RV, shouting, "Maddie!" He raced towards Dan, but he was too high up to reach.

The RV suddenly activated and pulled a U-turn and charged towards Dan, too. "Jack! Look out!" his mother warned. "The RV!"

Jack jumped out of the way just in time, much to Dan's disappointment. Injury wasn't the way he wanted to lock Jack up, but it would still do.

When the RV stopped, its turret rose from the roof. A green energy beam shot towards Dan, but with a wave of his hand, he caught the beam and absorbed it into his core. After that failed, a ray of green lightning was shot next. Dan simply turned intangible to avoid it. He couldn't see anyone in the driver's seat. The only person in the vehicle was that social worker who was bracing herself against the door on her side. Vlad must be the one firing at him.

The next thing shot was unexpected. When the glowing, green goop hit him, he couldn't phase through it. The force of the blast shoved him backwards, making him drop his mother. When he landed on the floor, he tried to pull himself out of the stuff, but it was as thick and clingy as tar. When he looked over at the RV, he found Jack holding his mother. "Jack! You did it!" she exclaimed.

"It was nothing, Maddie," he dismissed. He put her down and instructed, "You make sure Henrietta's okay while I finish this."

Maddie ran off towards the RV, and Jack marched up to Dan, still stuck in the goo. Jack grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up and out of the goop. "How's it going, _Danny_?" he wondered.

Dan laughed sardonically. "You overshadowed Jack. Oh, I'm _so scared_. Now, what's next? A card trick?"

"Listen to me," Vlad warned. "I swear that I will walk out of Jack right now and expose us both unless you agree to a truce."

"You're bluffing," Dan challenged.

"No, I'm not," Vlad insisted, pulling Dan closer in threat. "Jack and Maddie will accept me. No matter what you think. But if I expose you, well…" He laughed lightly, "what will you mom think of you?"

Dan couldn't help but grimace at the thought of what his ghost-hating mother might think of him.

Vlad put Dan down. "You'll be miserable without your friends of family, and you will never have them back unless you agree to a truce."

"Using your opponent's weaknesses against him. I guess I am teaching you something, aren't I," Dan pointed out. "Very well. Truce. Eventually, you will join me by choice. You _and_ my mother. But for now…" Dan cleared his throat and then jumped dramatically into the air, shouting, "Curse you, Jack Fenton! Your world-renowned expertise of all things ghost has defeated me! Until next time."

Dan then teleported slowly away, making it appear that he dissolved. He reappeared in the bathroom near the main part of the party. He morphed back into his human form and exited.

"Dan!" two voices shouted. Dan easily recognized them as Jerry and Marie. He was then squished into two simultaneous hugs.

"We were so worried about you!" Marie explained, the two of them finally releasing him.

"Was it really a ghost?" Jerry wondered.

Dan shrugged. "Maybe. Ghosts are really common in Amity Park, but I didn't think they came here."

"Really? Jerry exclaimed. "We're haunted?" He glanced around him in fear, looking as if he thought the very walls of the castle were possessed.

"We can't be. Ghosts can't be real," Marie countered.

Another two voices called for Dan, and he turned in response, finding Sam and Tucker racing towards him. "Did you see that?" Sam wondered.

"I didn't think ghosts were around here," Tucker added.

The two social workers entered the room in a heated argument, and Jack and Maddie followed. Dan battled hard to keep his disgust at their hand holding from being shown on his face.

Eventually, they reached the group, Jack extracted himself from Maddie and walked up to Jerry and Marie. "I, uh..I'm sorry for tonight. A ghost overshadowed me, and had control of my body. Either way, I'm still very sorry."

"In all honesty, I'm not sure if I should accept your apology," Marie said. "I'm not sure I believe in ghosts."

"Well, we're both professional ghost hunters," Maddie chimed in. "We can assure you that they are very real."

Marie simply nodded. "If it's all the same to you, though, I would like to ask you to please, leave our house."

Jack nodded. "We understand. We'll pack our things."


	8. Discoveries

Vlad's leg was bouncing from the nerves. He couldn't decide if he should tell Jack and Maddie about Dan. They love him, but learning who he's become might change their view of him forever and put them through terrible emotional pain.

"I can't believe that they fired Henrietta," Jack remarked as they drove down the road.

"Of course they did. She filed some crackpot story about ghosts to CPS," Jazz pointed out.

"But ghosts are real," Tucker reminded. "Everyone in Amity knows that."

"But to the rest of the world, ghosts are only real to crazy people or conspiracy theorists," Sam added.

"We're going to have to stop and get gas soon," Maddie informed from the driver's seat.

After a while more of driving, Maddie stopped the RV in a gas station and stepped out. Now was his chance. Vlad leaned forward and tapped Jack on the shoulder. Jack glanced back at him, and Vlad gestured outside the RV. The two stepped outside, and Vlad approached Maddie, Jack right behind him. "What is it, Vlad?" she asked, inserting the gas pump into the side of the vehicle.

"It's about that ghost tonight."

"That ghost," Jack muttered heatedly. "What about him?"

"I know who he is," Vlad answered.

"Did you hear about him in the Ghost Zone?" Maddie wondered. "A ghost that powerful has to be well-known."

"I heard of a new ghost that gained power too quickly to be natural, but that's not what I mean."

"Then what is it?" Jack insisted.

Vlad hesitated, but he took a breath and continued. "It's Dan."

"What?" Jack and Maddie simultaneously exclaimed.

"Shh!" Vlad ordered, gesturing to Jazz, Sam, and Tucker that were still in the RV. "He transformed right in front of me. That ghost from tonight _is_ your son."

Maddie ripped the gas pump out of the tank and slammed it back into its holder. "No. You have it wrong. I'll buy that Danny is a half ghost because of what happened with the portal, but he wouldn't do that to Jack."

"He's changed," Vlad argued. "When was the last time you saw him in person? Three years ago?"

"When he was inside of me," Jack interrupted, his voice low, "I could feel what he was feeling. He was angry and vengeful, but he also enjoyed it. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone, but he enjoyed destroying anything he got his hands on. And that's not it. There was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on. He wanted something, and it was more than just his immediate goal. It was like his very essence needed something, but I don't know what it could be."

The other two were silent for a moment. "Let's take this inside so the kids don't hear us," Maddie suggested, getting approval from Vald and Jack.

Maddie knocked on the window, and Sam rolled it down. "We're going to use the bathroom and get drinks and snacks from the gas station shop. You guys want anything?"

All three of them shook their heads.

Jack, Maddie, and Vlad locked the RV and headed inside the small shop, sticking close to each other. "Why would Danny do that to Jack?" Maddie repeated, her voice sharp. "And why would he try to kidnap me?"

"Jack said it himself: he's angry," Vlad reminded.

"But surely he knows that his change isn't my fault, right?" Jack asked.

"Did I?" Vlad scanned their faces. "After _my_ lab accident, I blamed you, although I had a more obvious reason to do so. Becoming a half ghost is the most painful thing that's happened in my life, and surely the same goes for Dan. You weren't there that day, but it was your device, and it was your idea. Maybe Dan hates you for his transformation. I did."

"Stop calling him Dan," Maddie growled, her voice tense.

Vlad shook his head. "I can't call him Danny anymore. He's just so different. He works with Skulker-orders him, more like. He's practically an adult in his ghost form. That alone is a testament to how powerful he is."

"You've had your powers for over twenty years, and you look pretty much the same in your ghost form. Danny's only had his powers for three years. How is he more powerful than you?" Jack wondered.

Vlad shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe it has to do with how he transformed. His entire body was irradiated with ghost energy. It was only my face when I had my accident. Either that or there's something about our powers that he knows that I don't."

"We've studied these powers for twenty years," Maddie pointed out. "What on Earth could he know that we don't after only three?"

"I don't know," Vlad repeated. "Look, we can debate this later, but we have three kids in the RV waiting to get home. And the question still stands: should we tell Jazz?"

"We never told her about you," Maddie said.

"Yes, but this is her brother, and she was there when Danny's accident happened," Jack pointed out.

After a little more debate, the three returned to the RV, a few hastily chosen snacks in their hands.

* * *

"I'm sorry we had to send your family away, Dan," Marie apologized.

Dan shrugged. "It's okay. I understand. I'm sorry so much stuff got broken." Dan genuinely was sorry. He meant to cause destruction, but he didn't want to hurt them.

Jerry waved a dismissive hand. "They're just things. Easily replaceable, but you are not." He put a hand on Dan's shoulder. "We're just glad you're okay. Now off to bed. It's almost three in the morning."

Dan nodded and headed towards his room, glad to be away from them. He failed, and the fact that he failed made him angry. His chest burned with it. He had to calm down before he lost it. When he got to his room, he closed the door and headed straight to the bathroom. He froze when he flicked on the light. His ghost thermos was sitting on the counter by the sink. With the lid off.

He rushed to it and picked it up, examining it. Who could have done this? Did Vlad do it before he left? He couldn't have. He knew that Dan was threatening Jack. Vlad would have raced straight towards Dan to fight him. But who let Vlad go in the first place? Skulker wouldn't have.

The heated anger in his chest briefly gave way to his ice cold ghost sense, making him turn around and face the ghost. It was a small, green-skinned man with a crown, royal robes, and a scepter in the shape of an ice cream cone. "It's not nice to keep ghosts locked up like that, don't cha know?" he said.

"You let them go? You let Vlad and these ghosts go?" Dan interrogated, both his heart and core hammering simultaneously in his chest.

"Some ghosts just wanna be left alone there, don't cha know?" the Dairy King pointed out. "These ghosts were crying for help. I had to let them go. It's what a good king would do, don't cha know?"

Dan didn't say a word, but he felt his eye twitching of its own accord. He's never been this angry before.

Before he knew what he was doing, he activated the ghost thermos, its beam wrapping around the Dairy King. The beam started to retract, but before it could suck the ghost inside, Dan grabbed him and extended his fangs. He bit into the King's neck, the ectoplasm flowing into his mouth. His body was pleasurably forced to transform as he took the power from the Dairy King into his core. He only noticed that the ghost had faded from existence when his fangs suddenly dug into the palm of his hand. The cut healed in an instant as he wiped the excess ectoplasm from his mouth.

He failed in locking up Jack, he had no ghosts, and he had no ghost portal to get more. His parents, on the other hand, did have a ghost portal. It's not like he could use it, and he couldn't steal the schematics for it and ask Jerry and Marie for the thousands of dollars it would take to make the thing. Sure, they were rich, but they wouldn't give that much money to him without asking any questions. He hardly knew if it was possible, but he had to steal his parents' portal. They could always build another, but he couldn't.

* * *

"You're a what?" Jazz wondered.

"A half ghost," Vlad repeated.

"Wh-what does that even mean?" Jazz asked. "You can't be both dead and alive at the same time."

"Well, apparently, you can," Vlad pointed out.

"Look, we don't know how or why it's possible, but Vlad is a half ghost," Maddie added. "We've been working with Vlad for years to keep ghosts out of Amity Park."

"If you were working on keeping the ghosts _out of_ Amity, why did you build a ghost portal to the Ghost Zone _in_ Amity?" Jazz interrogated.

"We wanted access to the Ghost Zone," Jack explained. "We need to learn as much as we can about them. We could learn more about Vlad that way, too."

"How did you even become this way?" Jazz wondered, finally taking a seat on the Fenton Works living room sofa.

Vlad took the lead in explaining the lab accident that happened in college. He didn't go into detail about the Ecto Acne and his years-long hospital stay, but Jazz was still satisfied. She sat there staring into space for a while before she spoke. "Danny," she whispered, slowly looking back up at her parents and Vlad. "When Danny turned on the portal, he nearly died. Is he like you too?"

Vlad slowly approached her and took a seat beside her on the sofa. "At the party last night, he imprisoned me. Another ghost let me go, but not before Dan told me that he wanted to..to get rid of Jack. I did everything I could last night to end the fight as quickly as possible, and luckily, no one was really hurt."

"Get rid of Dad?" Jazz repeated. "Why would he do that?"

Vlad shrugged. "I'm not sure. But he's angry. It took me years to forgive Jack for my accident, but I don't know how Dan is feeling."

"I need to talk to him."

"No," Maddie ordered. "According to Vlad, Danny has completely changed. Vlad didn't tell him that we already know about Vlad's powers. Letting Dan know that we know could get rid of our only advantage."

"' _Advantage_ '?" Jazz scoffed, getting to her feet. "This is your _son_! We just need to talk to him!"


	9. The Million Dollar Ghosts

Dan wanted to wait until he had a place to put the portal before he stole it from his parents, but that would mean going a year without a proper ghost to drain. He called Skulker to deliver some to him, but it wasn't enough. He was sick almost his entire senior year of high school. Jerry and Marire took him to the hospital several times, and they subjected him to a battery of tests. All the doctors said that he either had the flu or was going through withdraw, but they tested him for drugs, and they all came back negative. Dan insisted that he had never taken drugs, which he didn't. Luckily, though, Dan still aced enough school work and tests to pass the year, but he was too weak to make it to the graduation ceremony.

Dan had to seem well enough to move out and get a place of his own. He was eighteen, after all, about to start college. Jerry and Marie wouldn't let him leave if he was still sick. He called Skulker and just asked for one big ghost. He just wanted something to get his human half well enough to move out. Dan drained the ghost of its power the instant Skulker handed it over. He could faintly hear Skulker wondering if he was alright, but he didn't care. His core was starving.

That ghost lasted a month in his system. Skulker still delivered him several small ghosts, and Dan had to strain not to attack him. His logic was starting to fail him. He could put on plesant a façade for a short while, and it was enough to convince Jerry and Marie that he was finally well. He went to a college that was a state away from Amity. It was close enough to keep an eye on his family and not so far away to make it seem like he was distancing himself from Jerry and Marie.

As a congratulatory present, the two of them got Dan a small house near the campus, and it had the perfect basement to store the ghost portal. They went shopping together to get things for the house, they arranged payments for both the house and tuition, and Dan searched for a job, though he wasn't planning on actually taking it. He was going to focus more on developing his powers. When Jerry and Marie finally left and went back to Wisconsin, Dan collapsed on the floor, his core spasming even though he was still in human form. He felt like he was dying. He barely had the strength to call Skulker.

When the ghost finally showed up, he had a rather large ghost bear, but Dan was barely conscious. Skulker knelt down and shook his shoulders. "Wake up, Dan," he insisted, but Dan barely heard. His eyes fluttered open to see the blurred outline of Skulker, only recognizable by the green flame of hair on his head. "You need to wake up," his echoey voice ordered.

Skulker had enough. He extended his glowing, green blade and cut the bear's arm, ectoplasm dripping down through the ghostly fur and onto Dan's face. The cold drops made Dan twitch and open his eyes a little wider. Skulker grabbed the bear and held it in front of him. Dan struggled to reach up for it, but eventually he managed to grab onto one of the bear's claws and pulled it down towards him, his ghost half's strength coming through. Dan bit into the bear's hand.

Day's later, Dan put out an anonymous bounty on Vladdie Phantom. He contacted every major ghost hunting institution in America, taking special care to contact The Guys in White. Jack and Dan's mother would have to leave Fenton Works to protect Vlad, and with Jazz at college, the portal would be left completely unguarded, making it easy for Dan to slip in and take it.

* * *

Vlad's phone rang as he was reviewing schematics in his office. He pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open without checking who it was. "Hello?"

It was Maddie's voice who greeted him. "Vlad! There's a bounty on your head!"

Vlad froze. "A bounty? Why would there be a bounty on me?"

"It's on Phantom's head. Some anonymous person put out a million dollar bounty on you."

"Do you think it could be Dan?" Vlad wondered.

Maddie's voice hesitated. "I don't want to think it is, but it might be. Why would he do that? You told us that you both agreed to a truce. Other than a few calls and texts every now and then, we haven't had any contact with him in a year."

Vlad thought for a moment. "It could be the ghost portal," he offered. "We're reasonably sure it was him who was using it the entire time you were in prison. He could need access to the Ghost Zone, too, and he doesn't know how to build one."

Maddie sighed. "Maybe so. Should we guard the portal?"

"I don't think so. You and Jazz both think we should talk to him and attempt to reason with him. If he wants the portal, we have to make him think its unguarded so that he comes to take it. We can trap and talk to him then," Vlad planned.

At the end of the day, Vlad paid a visit to Jack and Maddie to work out the details of their plan, but mostly to debate on whether or not they should involve Jazz. Jack and Maddie wanted to, but Vlad was against it. Jack and Maddie have seen their fair share of ghosts and knew how to handle them, even one as powerful as Dan, but Jazz didn't. She had never had a personal encounter with a ghost, and the fact that this ghost was her brother could overwhelm her. Eventually, though, Vlad conceded, and they called Jazz.

For the next few days as the various ghost hunting teams arrived, Vlad, Maddie, and Jack let themselves be seen outside of Fenton Works together multiple times, trying to tempt Dan to come and steal the portal. Vlad let himself be seen by the ghost hunters in ghost form a few times, letting everyone of them know that he existed, and eventually, it worked.

Knowing that they couldn't sense each other, Vlad waited invisibly near the portal, and Jack and Maddie were outside the house to make it seem like the place was unguarded. After a while of waiting, Dan suddenly appeared in front of him. Vlad pressed the pager in his hand as Dan slowly approached the portal.

Dan scanned it up and down, planning the best way to remove it. He lifted his hand and mentally reached for each of the screws that held the portal in place. The screws began to spin as they were encased in a glowing, green aura.

A green ray struk the black and yellow striped doors, leaving a black smudge. Dan froze in his actions, the screws' motion freezing in place. He almost jumped when Vlad regained visibility next to him. Dan glared at him. This was a trap. And now he was stuck in a city filled with ghost hunters.

"Turn around, Dan," his mother's voice ordered. "Slowly."

Dan lowered his hand and did as he was told, struggling to keep the pain of another spasm from his core off of his face. His mother, Jack, and Jazz all waited there, an ecto gun for each of them, though only his mother had it raised.

"Transform back, Danny," Jazz pleaded. Her voice was sad that he almost listened to her, but he couldn't leave himself vulnerable, especially with how weak his human form was.

"Why did you do what you did at the party a year ago, Son?" Jack wondered.

"I'm not your son," Dan growled.

"Wh-of course you are, Danny," Jack countered. "I love you; we all do."

"Well, you had a funny way of showing it," Dan muttered, struggling to keep his voice from cracking. "All you ever talk about is ghosts. You're so obsessed with them that you left Jazz and I alone for months to practically fend for ourselves as you built this stupid portal," he gestured behind him, his throat burning as his voice rose. "The portal that nearly cost me my life."

His mother slowly lowered her gun, and Jack's grip on his slipped. It crashed to the floor. "I...I-"

"Mister Fenton, we-Ghosts!" a new voice shouted.

Dan looked to the stairs of the lab and found two men in white suits. The Guys in White. Before Dan could move, the two men launched a pair of glowing, blue nets towards him and Vlad. The two of them were caught in their separate nets and forced to the ground. Dan stretched his arms in an attempt to break the net, only to receive a painful shock from it. Already in significant pain, he almost morphed back into his human form, the black transformation rings appearing around his waist. He did manage to stop the transformation but just barely.

"Don't worry Mister and Missus Fenton," the dark-skinned Guy in White assured. "We'll dispose of these ghosts for you."

The two men dragged the nets up the stairs. Dan and Vlad bounced up each step. Vlad grunted with each impact, but Dan screamed. His entire body was aching before he got here, and it had been getting worse and worse by the hour. Skulker's ghost deliveries couldn't satisfy him anymore. His core was still starving, and nothing has been able to fill it.

The Guys in White dragged them along the pavement when they got outside and then threw them into the back of their truck. They locked the doors, and it wasn't long before the truck began to rumble as it moved. Dan, who landed on his back, was just barely holding onto his ghost form at this point, hardly conscious.

"Dan," Vlad breathed. When he didn't respond, he called again. "Dan." The younger half ghost dragged his eyes open and looked up at Vlad. "Are you alright?"

Dan didn't answer. He blinked rapidly until his eyes closed all together. After a second, the black transformation rings appeared again and morphed him back into his human form. That alone was enough to cause Vlad to panic-being a pair of ghosts caught by the Guys in White was bad enough, but a pair of half ghosts? Who knows what they would do to them-but that wasn't what caught Vlad's attention.

Dan's human form looked to be on the verge of death. Ghosts don't get sick, so his ghost form didn't look any different than it did a year ago. What was wrong with him?

After a while of driving, the van rattled to a stop. A few seconds passed, and then the doors opened, revealing the same two Guys in White from before and a tall, broad-shouldered man with a thick mustache behind them. That man smirked. "Good job on capturing the Million Dollar Ghost, boys," he congratulated. "But who is that in the other net?"

"It's another ghost that was with him," the dark-skinned Guy in White explained as the light-skinned one climbed into the back of the van.

That Guy in White grabbed both nets and dragged them towards him, eventually pulling them out of the van entirely. Vlad grunted with the impact of hitting the ground, but Dan didn't react.

"I thought you said it was a ghost," the man with the mustache said.

"He was," the dark-skinned man assured.

"O!"

The light-skinned agent stood at attention. "Sir?"

"Scan him," the man with the mustache ordered.

Agent O nodded sharply and took a pen out of his blazer's breast pocket. He clicked it, and the pen extended into a curved, blinking machine that beeped like a Geiger counter. He waved it over Dan's unconscious form, and it lit up like a Christmas tree. "He is a ghost, sir," O reported.

"Well, he can't be a ghost and a human," the other operative countered. "That's impossible."

The broad-shouldered agent rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I see two possibilities: One, this poor boy, who is clearly unwell, has been overshadowed, or two, there is a whole new species of ghost that we just discovered." The agent dropped his hand. "Lock them up, and take any and all possible DNA samples from them both."

"Yes, sir," both operatives agreed as their superior started to walk off.

Agent O leaned down and grabbed the end of Dan's net. "K, do you really think there could be a whole new species of ghost?" he wondered.

Operative K shrugged as he picked up the end of Vlad's net. "Not sure. Look at that kid." He gestured to Dan. "He looks terrible. My money is on the overshadowing. Whatever ghost is possessing him has clearly been doing it for a while. We'll get it out of him and free this kid."

As the two agents started to drag the nets through the parking lot, Vlad looked at Dan. As long as he fought through the pain, Vlad could easily get out of here, but he didn't know if Dan could. He couldn't leave the kid. With all of this facility's ghost weapons, there was no way Vlad could get both of them out.

While Vlad was debating his options, Operatives K and O dragged the two half ghosts through the white hallways and towards the cells. The sudden, sharp spike in his ghost sense made Vlad jump out of his thoughts. He looked around the various cells as a thin, red mist slipped between his teeth. There were more ghosts here than he thought there would be. Every cell had at least two ghosts inside, and there were all kinds here. Ice-based, neutral, heat-based, green-skinned, blue-skinned, blobs, and shadows. A mechanical hiss sounded behind him. Vlad couldn't see what created the sound, but that question was quickly answered.

A fast and sharp yank on Vlad's net launched him backwards. After he landed, Agents K and O crouched down on his level. K reached into the net while O reached into Dan's. K pulled a few black hairs out of Vlad's head and put them in a small plastic bag. Then he pulled out a needle and poked the skin on his face deep enough to draw blood. K put the needle into a tube and sealed it. Then K pulled out a cotton swab, reaching into the net. Vlad didn't fight him when he forced the swab passed his lips. They already had his hair and ectoplasm. Keeping his saliva from them wouldn't make much of a difference.

Once the samples were collected, both agents stood back up and exited the cell. They turned around to face Vlad, and that same mechanical hissing sounded again, a clear door closing between him and the GiW agents. Agent K lifted his wrist and pushed something on his watch, making the net containing him stop glowing. Vlad instantly tore the net and got to his feet. He rushed to the clear door and studied it in cautious curiosity.

"You're not getting out of there, ghost," Agent O berated. "You might as well convince your ghostly friend there to get out of that boy."

The two agents turned on their heels and walked off, leaving Vlad alone with his unconscious honorary nephew.


	10. Pains

Vlad looked around the blank cell. The floor was white, and the ceiling was nothing more than a bright white light. The walls looked like they were made of some sort of frosted glass, but Vlad knew they weren't what they seemed. He could just barely see the silhouettes of the ghosts that were beyond the left and right walls. The door took up the entire fourth wall of the cell, and was perfectly clear. The only indication that there was anything there was the faint shining of the overhead light glinting on it.

Dan groaned from the floor, and Vlad instantly dropped to the floor, grabbing the net. He tore the lines of it, freeing the boy. Vlad put a hand on his shoulder and gently shook him like he was waking up a small child. "Wake up, Dan. Please."

Dan lifted a hand and put it to his head, his lips forming a tired grimace. "What happened after those agents came?" he sighed.

Vlad internally cried with relief. "They threw us in the back of their van and took us to their main facility. They threw us in a cell." Dan unsuccessfully began trying to sit up. "Let me help you," Vlad offered. He reached forward to brace him, but Dan slapped the older half ghost's hand away.

Eventually, Dan managed to sit up and carefully lean himself against the left wall of the cell. Vlad nodded and sat on the floor. "Anything else I should know?" Dan asked. There was an obvious attempt at venom in his voice, but he was too tired to put any real effort into it.

"They think that you're overshadowed," Vlad explained. "They took DNA samples from each of us. Blood, hair, and saliva. They're going to find out that our DNA is both human and ghost. We need to come up with some kind of escape plan. You're powerful enough to get us out of here, aren't you?"

Dan didn't answer. He knew he was powerful enough to get them out of here-to tear the whole place down if he wanted-but he didn't know if he could do it. He was so weak. His core felt as bone dry as the Sahara desert in the middle of summer. He _needed_ to drain a ghost. It was the only way he would be able to get out of here. All of the ghosts surrounding him were making his ghost sense go off like crazy, and that was making his core twist and writhe with a sort of primal desire that Dan had never felt before.

"Dan," Vlad called, concerned by his contemplative silence.

Dan quickly looked up at Vlad. Dan knew he shouldn't. It would make his mother terribly sad if he drained Vlad out of existence. But who knew what would happen if he did. He was only half ghost. It could take away his ghost powers and still leave him alive.

Vlad didn't like the look in Dan's eyes. He was staring at him hard, almost studying him like a lion studies its prey before it pounces. "Dan," he cautiously began, his voice low, "what exactly was that secret to our powers you discovered? Is that what made you gain power so quickly?"

"What are you?" the deep, gravelly voice of K and O's commander demanded. Dan slowly picked his head up to look at the mustached man. "Your DNA is a mixture of both human _and_ ghost. You're both swamped with ecto energy, but you're still, undeniably, human."

Both Vlad and Dan stayed silent.

The man squared his already broad shoulders. "Fine. Have it your way. We'll just extract the information we need from you the hard way." He put a finger to the curled wire that was sticking out of his ear. "Take the older one."

A team of four agents poured into the cell block. Two of them had what looked to be spears that sparked with green electricity like shock prods, and the other two each had green-glowing collars. The two with the spears approached the clear door, their weapons out in front of them. Neither Dan nor Vlad moved. Vlad was being cautious. He didn't want to give these already dangerous people any more reason to hurt either him or Dan. Dan on the other hand, hardly cared what the agents were doing. He didn't care if that collar was meant to torture him or if they were going to cut him open. He just wanted a ghost he could drain. It didn't matter how powerful it was at this point. Just that it had a core brimming with ghost energy.

The two agents with the collars each approached Vlad and Dan. Vlad nearly panicked. If they got that collar on him, they would take whatever small form of control that he had left. He got to his feet and braced himself against the wall, trying to turn intangible. The agent with the spear thrust it forward. The second the sharp tip made contact with Vlad, he screamed in pain, dropping back to the ground.

The commander chuckled. "Your powers don't work here," he said. "You're completely trapped." The collar was latched around Vlad's neck. "You're both completely trapped."

The commander turned around and gestured for the team to follow him. The two now-empty-handed agents took Vlad by the arms and marched him forward. The two agents held their shock prods towards Dan, who continued to do nothing. They backed out of the cell, and one of them hit a button on his prod, making the clear door slide down from the ceiling to the ground, locking Dan inside.

Vlad was marched through a maze of corridors until they came to a pair of blank, windowless doors. The commander continued through them, and the agents forced Vlad through after him. What was inside was a dark room with various tools resting on counters that Vlad recognized. They were similar to the tools that he, Jack, and Maddie would use to study ghosts. There was also a large examination table with straps where arms and legs would be and a blindingly bright light hanging above it.

The agents holding Vlad's upper arms tried to force him forward, but Vlad fought against them. He dug his heels into the floor, repeatedly attempting to summon an ectoblast or to take off into the air, but nothing happened. One of the armed guards pressed a button on his shock prod, electrifying the collar around Vlad's neck. He screamed in pain, his entire body tensing. He didn't know how long had passed, but eventually, the pain stopped. Vlad limped in relief, struggling to maintain his consciousness. The guards shoved him forward and forced him down onto the examination table. They strapped him down as Vlad finally focused again.

A woman wearing a lab coat and goggles, her eyes obscured by the light glaring on it. A scalpel was gripped in her hand, and she stalked towards the table, a hungry sneer on her lips. "I'll be honest with you. I'm really honored to meet you," she gaped. "I'm Donovon. I've never seen DNA like yours or your friend's before, and I can't wait to examine you both further. Now, let's get started."

* * *

Dan couldn't take it. He could feel the other ghosts pacing beyond the walls. He knew exactly where each of them were and the power levels of each of their cores. His own core was twisting and convulsing painfully inside of him. Ectoplasm didn't necessarily taste good. It tasted like a barely flavored lime Italian ice, but right now, he would give anything to taste it again. The cores beyond the walls was the equivalent of a starving man smelling cooking meat he couldn't get to.

He didn't know when he made the decision, but he got to his feet, the palms of his hands and his forehead pressed against the wall. At some point, he started to gently beat the palm of his hand against the translucent wall. Eventually, his light pounding turned into whole-heartedly punching the wall with all of his strength. He needed to get to the ghosts on the other side. The more he thought of them, the stronger his punches got. His hand gave a sharp cry for him to stop with each impact, but Dan ignored it, beginning to scream with each punch.

A sudden, electric pain wracked his body, making his screaming continue. He fell to the ground, and the pain abruptly stopped. He curled up, his core spasming all the more. He didn't know how long he laid there, but at some point, the door hissed open again. He didn't look up, and he didn't move while the legs of white-clad guards passed in front of him.

A body was deposited on the floor, and then the door hissed closed. Now that Dan could see Vlad, his heart jumped slightly when he found him in human form. Eventually, Vlad's eyes opened. "What did they do?" Dan wondered, his voice sounding dull even to himself.

Vlad put a hand to his chest. "What do you think?" His voice was weak and faint. If it wasn't for Dan's sensitive hearing, he probably wouldn't have heard.

What seemed to be a few hours passed before the guards came back. The same process with the shock prod-armed guards happened again, but this time, they took Dan. Two guards grabbed him by his forearms as they dragged him through the cell block. His core yearned after the power of each ghost he passed, but he couldn't get to them. These agents would only hurt him if he tried, and he was too weak to fight them.

He came to a pair of blank and dark double doors, and a lab similar to his parents' was discovered behind them. A woman with a lab coat and a pair of goggles stood by a large examination table. "Hello," she greeted, her voice pleasant. "I'm Donovon. Will you tell me your name?"

Dan didn't answer. He didn't have the energy to.

"Oh, well, that's okay," Donovon sighed. "I am going to be examining you and your friend Phantom, and may I just say, I haven't looked at the samples I just took from him yet, but from the data I got, he is very interesting. I'm curious to see how you two are different." She gestured to the examination table.

The agents holding Dan thrust him forward and held him down on the table while Donovon secured the straps. She and the agents backed off, and after a minute of metallic rustling, she returned. She stood over him with a scalpel in her hand. It gleamed dangerously in the bright light above him. "Ready?"

"What no anesthetic?" Dan quipped, his voice monotone.

Donovon laughed, her voice sounding empty. "Of course not! I want to see your full reaction with no interference."


	11. Satisfaction

"What do we do?" Jazz demanded. "We can't just leave them to the Guys in White! They'll gut them like fish and not give a crap that they're still human!"

"Well, it's not like we can storm a government facility!" her father reasoned. "They have hundreds of unknown defenses-if that!"

"Not to mention that we have no idea what the layout of the building is or where Danny and Vlad are inside of it," Maddie added. "We'd be going in blind and be of no help to them at all."

Jazz groaned in defeat, dropping onto the living room sofa. She put her head in her hands, feeling so helpless that she wished she could disappear.

"We need to figure out some way to get the schematics of their building," Maddie pointed out.

"And it might be a good idea to have them escape on their own while we're deactivating the defenses from the front," Jack added. "That way we can meet in the middle and reduce the chance of getting captured because their forces will be spread thinner fighting on two fronts."

"Yes, but that means we'll have to construct some way to communicate with them while they're inside," Maddie countered.

Jazz's head shot up. "Tucker," she breathed.

"Danny's friend?" Jack clarified.

Jazz got to her feet, sudden hope strengthening her legs again. "Danny never thought I paid attention, but I did. His friend Tucker is good with computers. I've been keeping in contact with him, and remember what Vlad said he was working on at Axiom Labs four years ago?"

"Those tiny robots?" Maddie wondered.

"Yeah." Jazz nodded. "He's testing them at his school. They're tiny cameras. They can't really communicate, but they have a light on them that he's been using to communicate with Morse code. We can send one of those into the facility and use it to talk to them. Does Vlad know Morse code?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, he does, but I don't think I want to get Tucker involved."

"Well, do you have a better idea? The GiW could be killing them for all we know! We _need_ to talk to Tucker," Jazz said insistently.

Jack and Maddie shared a glance, but eventually they both nodded. Jazz immediately pulled out her phone, dialing Tucker. He picked up after more dial tones than Jazz was comfortable with. "Yeah, Jazz?" he asked, laughter fading from his voice.

"Tucker, I need you to come to Fenton Works now," she informed, her voice taut.

"Uh, sure," Tucker agreed, his lingering laughter instantly leaving his tone. "Is everything okay?"

"It's about Dan and my Uncle Vlad. And bring one of those robots you've been working with."

* * *

After a few hours of anxious waiting, the doorbell rang. Maddie was at the door in a second and yanked it open. "Come on in," she instructed, opening the door wider.

Tucker and Sam walked through the door, much to Jack's shock. "I don't want Sam involved in this. I don't want to get her in trouble, too," he protested as Maddie closed the door behind them, locking it shut.

"Hey!" Sam shouted. "Tucker and I are a package deal. Especially if this is about Dan."

Jazz sighed away her stress. "Then both of you sit down. We have something to tell you."

After a few minutes of explaining, Tucker sat there in shock, staring at the wall. Sam, on the other hand, breathed, "I knew it."

"You did?" Maddie wondered.

"Well, immediately after the accident in the lab, he came out with white hair and green eyes," she explained. "He was glowing and the colors on his jumpsuit flipped. I tried to touch him, but my hand slipped straight through him. After a while, I convinced myself that I was just freaked out, and I didn't see what I thought I saw. But there was always this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I wasn't wrong. Especially after his sudden change in behavior."

"So you want this," Tucker held up the black case he brought, "to slip into a base that we have no schematics for and somehow navigate it to Dan and Vlad's cells that are on an unknown floor and somehow communicate to them a break-out plan that we don't have through a blinking light. Do I have that right?"

"Well, when you word it like that…" Jazz said, massaging the back of her neck in her nervousness. She dropped her hand, looking back at Sam and Tucker. "Look, they could be shredding both of their internal organs as we speak, so are you in or not?"

Sam and Tucker shared a look before turning back to the parents and daughter. Sam got to her feet. "If only so that I can give Dan a slap in the face for abandoning us," she sighed.

"I'll get to work on getting those schematics," Tucker announced, pulling out his PDA.

They practiced, they prepared, and they studied. They crossed their fingers and hoped against hope that this plan would work better than their nervous hearts were making them doubt it.

* * *

Dan rested on his back on the floor of his cell with his eyes closed. He couldn't take it anymore. Vlad would be dropped off again soon. He would likely be in human form, but his core would still be waiting. Dan wondered if it was possible for him to drain Vlad's core with him in human form, but it would be worth the try if it could even temporarily relieve the constant aching from his core.

The door hissed open, making Dan's heart jump with excitement. He opened his eyes as the guards entered. The same two pointed their shock prods at him, and the same other pair dropped off Vlad's unconscious form with a dull thud. The agents backed away, and the door hissed again as it closed.

Dan groaned with pain as he sat up. He leaned against the wall, staring at Vlad. Dan could drain him now, but it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying if he was awake. If Vlad was awake, his heart and core will both be pumping harder than they were now, producing more and more power, and fortunately, he didn't have to wait long.

Vlad groaned and put a hand to his scarred chest. "Dan?" he croaked as his eyes cracked open.

"Are you awake?"

Vlad groaned again. "I guess." He gave off a pained grunt as he sat up and leaned himself against the wall opposite Dan.

"What did they do this time?" Dan wondered, hoping that remembering it would make Vlad's heart and core beat faster.

Vlad's eyebrows pushed together as he tried to think of it. "They studied mostly my stomach this time, I think. Though, I did pass out after a while." He looked up at Dan, and he didn't like the look in the young man's eyes. They were the red of this ghost form, and he was staring at Vlad with a starving desire.

Dan's heart was beating so fast. His core was practically jumping out of his chest of its own accord. There was still some small part of him that was thinking of his mother, and what she would think if he drained Vlad out of existence.

But he didn't exactly care.

Dan leapt to his feet, launching himself at Vlad. He grabbed the older man by the collar of his torn clothes and pulled him to his feet. He shoved him against the wall, holding him in place with one hand on his chest and the other forcing his head back.

Vlad openly gaped at Dan in shock, his blood red eyes making Vlad more terrified than he's ever felt in his life. "What're you doing?" Vlad demanded, his voice shaking.

"Remember that secret to our powers that I found?" Dan said, his voice high with excited anticipation. "You're about to find out what that is."

Dan pulled Vlad's head to the side by the hair, exposing his neck. He didn't hesitate and latched onto his skin. It took a moment, but his fangs did extend, digging in further.

Vlad jumped when Dan bit into him. He struggled against him, but either Vlad was too exhausted from being cut open one too many times or Dan was unbelievably strong. He writhed and pushed, straining to get Dan to let go, but nothing worked. His head started to feel fuzzy like it was filled with cotton. In one last-ditch attempt to free himself, Vlad kicked out. He impacted something repeatedly, and he didn't care what it was. He kept kicking in the faint hope that it was Dan.

Eventually, Dan backed away with a cry of pain, his fangs coming out of Vlad's throat. He kicked the younger half ghost in the stomach, pushing him into the opposite wall. Vlad rushed at him and pressed him further into the wall. "What was that?" Vlad shouted.

"Why'd you kick me in the balls?" Dan yelled back.

Vlad didn't answer, only stared at the mixture of blood and ectoplasm coating Dan's elongated teeth. After a moment, Vlad glared into his dangerously red eyes. "Was that it? Was that the key to our powers? You're an energy absorber?"

"So what if I am!" Dan roared, his voice cracking. He pushed at Vlad with enough force to shove him away. He tried to jump on Vlad again, but a spasm from his core made him cry out and fall to the ground. He gasped and grabbed at his chest.

Vlad looked down at Dan as he covered the wound to his neck with his hand. He watched the gasping and writhing boy, unsure of what to do. Eventually, he got down on the floor to Dan's level. "Energy absorbers have to be careful," he said, his voice gentle. "Even Spectra admitted that she had a hard time controlling it at first. Taking power from other ghosts can be addictive-in fact, it usually is addictive in some form or another. Spectra is addicted to her youth, but it looks like you got addicted to the power itself."

"All the ghosts in here," Dan moaned, "sensing them hurts. Ever since last year, my core has been twisting and convulsing. It hurts." He curled in on himself tighter.

"How did it start?"

"I was curious," Dan explained. "I studied a small ghost and compared it to the DNA of my ghost half. I used my parents' equipment, and I reviewed the news footage of your old fights. I studied Spectra as best as I could with that. I determined it to be safe and directly injected myself with the ghost's core energy. It felt good."

Vlad nodded in understanding. After a while, Dan's pained gasping stopped. His tense limbs gradually relaxed, though he remained in his position on the floor. "Just out of curiosity, what does ectoplasm taste like?" Vlad wondered. "I always wanted to know, but I was far more cautious than you."

A brief, second-long smile ghosted Dan's lips. "It doesn't really have a taste, but I guess it tastes like freezing, freezing cold, barely flavored limeade."

Vlad laughed lightly. Something glared in his eyes, catching his attention. He looked down and found something on the floor. It was small and black, hardly bigger than an ant. Vlad put his hand down to it, and it crawled onto his palm. Vlad held it up to his face to study it.

"What is it?" Dan wondered.

"One of my projects that just moved to the final phase of testing," Vlad explained.

"What's it doing here?" Dan asked, grunting with the effort of sitting up again.

"No idea," Vlad said.

The green activation light on it started to blink, and it blinked in a familiar pattern over and over again. "It's blinking in Morse Code," Vlad noted.

"What's it saying," Dan wondered.

Vlad muttered the letters the small machine blinked out. "F-e-n-t-o-n-s-s-a-m-t-u-c-k. Fentons, Sam, Tuck. It seems that your family and two friends sent this."

"Do you think they can hear us?" Dan wondered, leaning forward to take a closer take at the thing.

"I'm pretty sure. One of our last additions to these cameras were a microphone, so they can hear us but can't talk to us," Vlad explained.

The small camera's light began to blink again, and Vlad muttered the letters. "G-o-i-n-g-l-o-o-p-c-a-m-f-e-e-d. They're going to loop the camera feed."

"But aren't they coming back for my turn soon?" Dan pointed out.

Vlad nodded. He looked directly at the camera. "Don't loop the feed until Dan is back. They're coming to take him soon. I don't know how long it will be."

The light on the camera blinked out two letters "O-k."

Sure enough, only a few minutes later, the agents returned, and the door hissed open. The same agents pointed their spear-like shock prods, and the same pair picked Dan up off the floor by the forearms and dragged him through the facility. Dan hardly fought as they went through the routine of strapping him down. Donovon approached in the same way with the same scalpel.

"I saw what you did in there over the camera feeds," she said. "Going after your friend like that is interesting. What is an energy absorber, by the way? I suppose we'll find out right now."

She looked to her right and gestured for someone to come forward. Another GiW agent came forward, a struggling ghost on the other end of a glowing leash. The agent grabbed the ghosts hair and shoved her down on top of Dan. The ghost's neck was positioned close to his mouth, and his fangs automatically extended again.

Donovon giggled with delight. "I can tell that you want her energy, and feel free to take it," she invited. "Drain her out of existence for all I care, but if it's all the same to you, I'm going to open you up again after its done so that I can see what happens."

Dan wasn't sure if he should give them what they wanted, but he hardly got any power from Vlad at all. It wasn't even enough to force him to morph. No to mention that if they were breaking out soon, he would need the extra energy.

He hesitantly let his fangs graze the ghost's green skin. Instinct took over the instant the first drop of ectoplasm touched his tongue, and his head shot up, latching onto the ghost. It struggled, but it quickly lost strength. The black transformation rings appeared at his waist, transforming him as they passed his body over. The ghost faded out of existence much more quickly than Dan would have liked, and he only noticed that she disappeared when his jaw clamped shut, cutting his lip.

Donovon squealed with delight as the GiW agent backed away. "Now, let's get started."

* * *

After it was over, and Dan was sewn up, he strained to return to human form. His body ached, wanting to remain in ghost form, but he forced even his eyes to remain blue rather than red. He was naturally limp from the sheer amount of concentration it took. The agents pulled him up from the bloodied table and dragged him back to his cell. They dropped him on the floor and backed out, the door closing behind them.

Vlad shook Dan's shoulder. "Are you alright?" he insisted.

Dan looked up at him, his fangs and red eyes slipping through. He smirked. "Never better."


	12. Break Out

"Are you strong enough to break us out of here?" Vlad asked, his voice low enough to not be picked up by the various cameras watching them.

Dan nodded as he sat up and leaned against the wall. "I think so. We can't do much with our powers here, but we can still morph. Once the cameras are looped, I can morph and punch our way out of here," Dan explained, matching Vlad's volume.

"The door is too thick. You'd break your hand before you got us out of here," Vlad cautioned.

"Who said anything about the door?" Dan said, knocking lightly on the wall he was leaning against.

"Okay, but how will that get us out of here?" Vlad questioned.

Dan sat up further, hardly able to contain his excited anticipation. "The more powerful the ghost, the harder it is to contain there power under any circumstance. Even for an agency as well equipped as these guys," Dan explained. "If I break through this wall, those ghosts behind it are ripe for the picking. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel, only it'll help us. My powers will spike and be too much for their systems to contain. I'll be able to-"

"I'm not going to let you drain those ghosts out of existence," Vlad refused.

Dan groaned and rolled his eyes. "Do you have a better idea?"

Vlad sighed and leaned back against the wall, considering. After a moment, he sat back up again and asked, "Do you _have_ to destroy the ghosts to get their power?"

Dan shook his head. "No, not really, but it'll be better for us because-"

"Us, or you?" Vlad interrogated, making Dan freeze.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just saying that you nearly killed me because you couldn't control yourself," Vlad explained. "Do you want those ghosts because they'll help us escape or because you want their power?"

Dan scoffed. "Does it really matter? Either way, I can use their powers to help us escape. We will get out of here."

Vlad stared at Dan intensely, studying him. After a while of tense silence, Vlad sighed. "Fine. You can drain one ghost, but you will _not_ destroy them."

"Fine," Dan agreed, privately wondering what Vlad could even do to stop him. "Can you tell them that it's okay to loop the feed?"

Vlad removed the small camera from his pocket and held it up to his face. "We're ready when you are." The green light on the small machine started to blink, and Vlad mouthed out the letters. "M-o-v-e-b-e-s-t-l-o-o-p." Vlad lowered the camera. "They want us to move around so that they have a better segment to loop."

Dan nodded. "You move around more than I do in here, so you do it. It'll decrease suspicion."

"Okay," Vlad agreed.

They spent a minute with Dan lying on the floor in various positions as he usually does and Vlad pacing around the cell as he usually does. Vlad then sat down and picked up the little camera again. "Ready?" he asked.

After a moment or two, the camera blinked out two letters: "G-o."

Vlad looked up at Dan. "We're ready."

Dan shot to his feet, instantly morphing. He turned around as Vlad got to his feet. Vlad morphed, and Dan started to punch the wall with all of his ghostly strength. Vlad's ghost form was weaker than Dan's and was even weaker as a result from the multiple experiments from the agents, but he still joined in.

Dan's hand began to ache more and more, but the wall was cracking. The ghosts beyond it were afraid and backing up to the other side of the cell. The power from the ghost he just drained was already waning. He struck the wall harder and harder, and eventually, it burst. Pieces of the thick, tinted wall dropped to the ground, opening up a large hole to the other cell. Dan slipped through the hole, and Vlad followed. He barely got through the hole when Dan already had a ghost in his hands. His teeth were latched onto its throat. Vlad rushed up to him, waiting. He concentrated on his forming powers. He doesn't use the power much due to its destructive capabilities, and he wasn't sure how much of it he could use with the power-cancelling collar on, but he had to get Dan to let go.

It wasn't long after the ghost stopped pushing against Dan's chest that it started to fade. Vlad readied his electric-based ability and formed a small shock in his fingertips. He jabbed his fingertips into Dan's throat, making him jump and let go. Vlad caught the ghost as Dan dropped it. He held it upright and turned to Dan. "That's enough!" he shouted. "Now get us out of here."

Dan wanted to know how Vlad shocked him like that, but it didn't exactly matter at the moment. Dan summoned a bright pink blast into his hand, and just as he suspected, the anti-ghost defenses the facility was equipped with did nothing to stop him. He focused the blast on the door of the cell and let it rip. The door was blasted to bits. The alarm instantly went off. Dan grabbed Vlad and took off through the air.

Vlad struggled to hold onto the tiny camera. He hardly noticed when it started to blink again. "F-r-e-q-u-1-1-8."

He looked up at Dan as he raced through the halls. "Grab a walkie talkie off of one of the agents!" he called. "They want to talk to us!"

Dan didn't acknowledge that he heard him, but as a group of four agents burst through the nearby doors and into the halls, he dropped to the ground. He let Vlad go, and instantly blasted the agents. It was a clean and efficient one blast each. Dan approached one of the fallen agents and swiped the walkie from his belt. He tossed it to Vlad and instructed, "Talk fast. It's only a matter of time before more agents come, and the excess power does wear off you know."

Vlad nodded in acknowledgement as he gently placed the still-flickering, unconscious ghost on the floor and flipped the walkie's frequency to 118. "You there?"

"We're here!" Maddie's voice greeted.

"And we can see you on the camera footage," a new voice said. Vlad recognized it, but he couldn't quite place it.

"That's Tucker," Dan muttered, approaching Vlad as he pulled at his collar with a glowing hand. "Tucker what're you doing there?"

"Breaking you out, of course," Tucker's voice laughed. "Now, I've got the camera feed looped still, so they can't exactly tell where you are as long as you don't go blasting anymore doors. So follow my instructions, and we'll get you to their main control room. We bring that down, both you two and all of these ghosts can escape without issue."

"Where do we go?" Vlad asked.

"First, head straight down the hall you're in now," Tucker instructed.

Dan tore off his collar in one swift motion and quickly grabbed Vlad again, taking off down the hall. Dan followed the instructions that Vlad relayed to him to the letter until Vlad ordered him to stop. "You're right below it," Tucker's faint voice said. "Can you still phase through stuff?"

"I think so," Dan responded, turning himself and Vlad intangible.

He drifted upwards, easily slipping through the ceiling. Once through, Dan dropped Vlad onto the floor and readied two ectoblasts. The security inside were too busy panicking to even notice their entrance. Dan easily blasted the first two out of five agents in the room, finally catching their attention. He blasted the second pair as they reached for their weapons. The final agent shot him with her ecto-gun, but Dan absorbed the energy with his hand and then sent it back towards her.

All five agents were down quickly, and Vlad rushed to the one closest to him. He took the agent's pulse and was relieved to find that he was still alive. He lifted up the walkie and opened the channel again. "We're in the security room. How do we take it down?"

"There should be a large, red button under a thick glass cover," Tucker informed.

"Found it," Dan announced as he stood up, an ecto-gun in his hand.

"What're you doing with that?" Vlad wondered, standing up slowly.

Dan glanced down at the gun and then back at Vlad. "Oh, don't worry," he dismissed. "It's not for you." He then pointed the gun at his own chest and pulled the trigger with his thumb.

"Dan!" Vlad shouted, rushing towards him.

Dan sighed contentedly and then dropped the gun, leaving Vlad standing there with an open mouthed, shocked expression. "It's artificial energy, but it still gets the job done," Dan explained.

"What happened?" Tucker's voice wondered from the walkie.

"Nothing," Vlad sighed. "We found the button. Now what?"

"All five agents have keys on them. You need to turn them all at the same time to open it," Tucker explained. "I would say you can just blast it, but unfortunately it's ecto-proof."

Dan and Vlad searched the agents finding their keys. They inserted each key into a keyhole around the button, and then Dan lifted a hand. The five keys were encased in a green aura of energy, and they all turned simultaneously. The thick covering popped open.

Vlad held the Walkie up again. "It's open."

"Great! Push that, and all ghost defenses go down," Tucker said.

Dan shrugged and slammed his hand down on the button. A second, more high-pitched alarm blared, and Tucker shouted through the walkie, "It worked! All the ghosts are starting to break open their cells. We're just outside in the Fenton RV."

Vlad's collar stopped glowing, and he felt his suppressed powers rise up within him. He pulled off the collar, and he and Dan took off through the ceiling. They phased through floor after floor until they ended up outside. They easily spotted the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle a few blocks away and raced towards it. They landed outside and morphed into their human forms. The back door opened, and Jazz poked her head out. "Get in!"

Vlad and Dan jumped inside, and Jazz closed the door behind them. Tucker was sitting in the back seat, a walkie in the cup-holder next to him and a laptop on his lap. Sam was sitting next to him watching what he was doing over his shoulder. They both jumped when the door closed. They turned to see them, and Tucker smiled warmly. "Welcome to the outside, dude," he greeted.

Sam got up on her knees, turning to fully face Dan. Having not seen them in over a year, Dan didn't know what to do and stood there frozen. Sam balled her hand into a fist and reeled it back, instantly punching Dan in the nose.

Dan stumbled backwards with the sudden force and groaned. He dropped down onto the floor and held his nose. "Ow!" he complained, his voice muffled by his hand. "What was that for?"

"Abandoning us after you nearly died!" Sam yelled.

"Where are Jack and Maddie?" Vlad interrupted.

Tucker glanced back at his screen. "They're coming back now."

A minute later, the driver and front passenger doors both opened, and Jack and Maddie slipped inside. "Mission successful!" Jack proudly announced.

"And what mission was that?" Dan wondered, getting back up to his knees.

Jack put the vehicle into drive and blasted out of their parked position as Maddie explained, "We destroyed any and all samples they had. They have no scientific proof that you even existed."

"And now," Tucker announced, raising his hand and slamming his finger down on the enter button, "They have no proof at all. I just erased every single file pertaining to you both and sent an overload signal to their entire computer system." Tucker turned back to Dan and Vlad. "I would have done that to their security system, too, but that system was air gapped. Couldn't hack it."

An unfamiliar engine sound reached Dan's hearing, and he turned around to look through the back window. "Uh-huh, and that's all well, and good, but what was your plan for being followed?"


	13. Dan's Funeral

A blast rocked the RV, making all of them cry out in surprise. "We're going to have to stop eventually!" Jazz yelled over the deafening sounds of the blasts. "It's either that or get blown up!"

"We have to deface them," Dan offered, his voice straining to be heard over the sounds of the blasts. "They have no proof of us, but they still have favor in public opinion and their other branches."

"How do we do that?" Sam demanded.

"They're famous for killing and studying ghosts, but they've never hurt a human. So we have to make them hurt a human," Dan explained.

"Well, how are we going to do that without actually getting someone killed?" Vlad asked.

"We use my ability to duplicate," Dan said. "I can turn a duplicate human and get in the way of one of their blasts."

His mother whirled around in her seat. "You want to fake your own death?"

Dan shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Are you high?" Sam demanded incredulously.

"Yeah, a little," Dan shouted back.

"So it really does get you high?" Vlad wondered.

"Not the time," Dan reminded. "You guys keep going. We'll meet you at Fenton Works, and you," Dan pat Vlad's shoulder, "let's get going. We have a death to fake."

Dan morphed and turned intangible. The RV continued forward, and Dan drifted through the back door. Vlad joined him a second later in his ghost form. "What do we do?" Vlad demanded, his voice sharp.

"Provoke them," Dan answered. "You keep them busy for a second while I make a human duplicate."

Vlad nodded and sent several green ectoblasts towards the set of jet pack-equipped agents while Dan turned invisible. He drifted closer to the ground and made a duplicate. The duplicate ran off and positioned himself behind a car before turning human. Once that was completed, Dan rushed upwards, flanked the group of six agents and blasted two of their jet packs as he regained visibility. The other agents jumped and turned to face him as their two friends went crashing to the ground.

Dan raced around as they trained their guns on him. He met up with Vlad and said, "Duplicate's behind us behind a car."

"How long do you want to drag this out?" Vlad asked as he blocked a shot from one of the agents with a thick, green shield.

Dan sent another blast from behind Vlad's shield. "Not too much longer. People are starting to come outside." He dodged a shot from the agents. "Don't want there to be any collateral damage. Make it look like they're winning and back up against the car."

Vlad hardly nodded and backed away a few inches at a time. Dan put up a pink shield to block another shot at the last second. He pretended like the shot forced him to the ground. He rolled backwards towards the car. Only two out of the six agents stayed on Vlad while the other four hovered a few inches above the ground, forming a semicircle around Dan. Each agent advanced forward, and Dan and Vlad continually backed up towards the car. "We have you two surrounded!" a voice boomed from above. The pair of half ghosts looked up and found a white helicopter with O and K's supervisor leaning out the door with a megaphone in his hand. "Surrender or be destroyed!"

Vlad and Dan shared a communicative glance, and then they both drew power into their hands. The agents powered up their guns in turn. Dan measured their power level. The ecto-energy in their guns might be artificial, but he could still sense their power building. It was as if time slowed down and he could see the shots from each gun as they left the barrels. At the last possible second, Dan drew the power from his hands back into his core and grabbed Vlad by the arm. He turned them both invisible and intangible and took off upwards. Dan took them to the closest roof and landed, regaining visibility and tangibility. Dan morphed back to human form, and Vlad followed suit. They ducked down just as the car exploded.

Dan instructed his human duplicate to cry out and drop to the ground. Several shouts of surprise, concern, and accusations rang through the air. Dan concentrated and sent his consciousness into his duplicate. The duplicate had so much external damage that he would have been dead if he was a real person. The only reason he was still around was because his ecto-energy wasn't sapped at all.

Dan groaned in the duplicate's body, and some lady ran to him, jumping into the smoking crater that the GiW agents created. "Where did they go?" the voice from the helicopter boomed.

"Who cares about those ghosts!" the lady shouted, picking Dan's duplicate up and cradling him in her arms. "You just shot this kid!" She looked down at him, and Dan put on a dramatic show of dying: groaning, gasping, pretending not to be able to keep his eyes open. "Someone call an ambulance!" She looked down at him again. "Stay with me, kid. We'll get you help, okay? Where are your parents?" She glanced around as if they would be nearby.

At the question, Dan simultaneously thought of his mother and Jerry and Marie. What would Jerry and Marie think of this? He told them he would be visiting Amity Park to see his sister. He didn't know how many days he spent in that cell. How long had it been since he contacted them? He would never be able to see them again after this.

Dan pretended to hold on for a minute or two before retracting any and all consciousness from the duplicate and returning to himself. Without a consciousness, the natural bodily functions automatically halted, effectively leaving a dead body even though it was artificial.

Dan and Vlad stayed to watch for a little while as the ambulance and police arrived. The white-clad agents were forced to return to the ground, shut off their jet packs, and drop their guns. The paramedics looked over Dan's dead duplicate before loading him up into the ambulance and driving off, the lights dark and siren silent.

"Think we're good?" Vlad wondered.

Dan nodded and whispered, "Yeah. Let's head to Fenton Works." Dan looked at Vlad. "How fast can you fly?"

"Couple hundred miles per hour. Why?"

Dan smirked.

"Oh, you're challenging me," Vlad realized. "Very well. I accept."

Vlad morphed and took off at top speed.

Dan spared the smoking scene below one last glance before morphing and teleporting directly to Fenton Works.

His sudden appearance in the living room made the waiting family and pair of friends shout in surprise. Dan raised his hands as his mother and Sam readied their guns. "Woah! It's me!" he shouted.

Sam and Maddie both sighed with relief as the other half ghost phased through the ceiling. Vlad dropped onto the floor and looked at Dan in surprise. "How did you get here so fast?"

"He just popped in here," Sam explained. "Scared us all to death."

Vlad rolled his eyes as he morphed back to human form. "You said it was a race."

"I did," Dan agreed as he, too, returned to human form, "but I didn't specify _how_ we had to get to the destination, now, did I?"

"No, I guess not," Vlad sighed as he dropped into a chair.

"Hey, guys," Tucker voiced, "take a look at this."

Tucker turned his laptop around to show the screen. A paused news report was displayed. He unplugged his headphones from the computer and pressed play. The news man began, "And as of yet there are no reports of any fatalities from the gas leak, and authorities are confident that they have sealed-" An explosion sounded, cutting him off. The camera's image blurred as the operator jumped. "What was that?" the reporter gasped as the image settled. The reporter gestured off screen. "I think it came from that way."

The camera operator and reporter crawled forward and turned a corner, revealing Vlad and Dan's ghost forms fighting the Guys in White. The image jumped again as a blast apparently forced Dan to the ground.

"Oh, my gosh!" the reporter gasped. He looked directly into the camera. "Uh...Th-this is Lance Thunder, and it appears that the Guys in White are engaged in some sort of confrontation with two ghosts."

The camera focused on Dan and Vlad as they were forced back against the car. It exploded a second later, making the image jump once more.

"Th-the ghosts are gone," Lance Thunder stuttered.

"Where'd they go?" the faint voice of O and K's supervisor demanded.

"Who cares about those ghosts!" that woman's voice shouted. "You just shot this kid!"

Tucker paused the report again and looked up at Dan. "Congratulations. You're dead."

"And the GiW are disgraced," Maddie added.

"It's a shame," Jack moaned. "I liked those guys."

A knock sounded at the door. Maddie instantly jumped up and turned to Dan and Vlad. "Both of you. Invisible. Now," she harshly ordered.

Vlad and Dan complied as Maddie approached the door. She opened the door, revealing a pair of police officers. "Missus Fenton?" one of them said, his voice low and sympathetic. "I'm afraid we have some bad news. Your son Daniel is dead."

Maddie was silent for a few seconds before crying out in apparent pain and sinking to the floor. Jack and Jazz got up from their seats and approached the door. "Did we hear you right?" Jazz asked.

"I'm afraid so, ma'am," the same officer confirmed.

* * *

Jack and Maddie were asked to come to the hospital morgue to identify the body the next day. They drove there in the RV with Dan in the back seat. He said that he wanted to come and make sure that the duplicate remained as it was, and while that was true, it wasn't the whole reason. He couldn't get Jerry and Marie out of his mind. It was undoubted that they were called, too, and asked to come out and identify him. They were such nice people. He wanted to see them again one last time.

"Will he look like you?" his mother gasped.

"Of course it will," Dan confusedly answered. His mother stared hard out the windshield, shaking. Dan put a hand on her shoulder. "It's just a duplicate, mom. It's not really me."

Maddie nodded silently.

It wasn't long before they got to the hospital. Dan turned himself invisible and floated alongside Jack and Maddie. He usually only floated while human when he was feeling lazy about walking, but this time it was because he didn't want to set off any ghost alarms. His powers weren't really detectable while he was in human form. The usual weak security devices wouldn't be able to detect him unless he was in ghost form.

Dan's breath caught in his throat when they met Jerry and Marie in the hospital entrance. They both looked so terrible with their reddened eyes and messed up hair. Marie sniffed and greeted Maddie and Jack. "I'm sorry for kicking you out that day," she muttered.

"It's okay," Jack comforted. "You were in the right."

The four of them alerted the hospital staff that they had arrived, and a minute later, a man in a lab coat arrived. He announced that he was from the morgue and expressed his sympathies, but Dan hardly paid attention as they made their way down to the basement. He watched Jerry and Marie as he floated alongside them in the elevator. They stood closer to each other than they ever have before, holding each other's hands. As they got out of the elevator, Dan's heart was crushed. He suddenly started questioning his actions yesterday. He didn't want to remain in that facility being opened up and put back together again every few hours, but maybe there was a way to get out of it that didn't involve faking his death that he just didn't think of in all the chaos. Jerry and Marie were devastated, and they both looked to be ready to break down and fall to the floor any second.

The group arrived at the morgue, and the medical examiner approached a silver, metal drawer that was in the wall amongst rows of others. The M.E. pulled open the drawer, revealing a body covered by a white sheet. He looked up at the four adults and gently said, "Be prepared because when the explosion went off, he sustained a lot of damage."

Maddie nodded, and the medical examiner pulled back the sheet, revealing Dan's dead duplicate. The M.E. was right. There was a lot of damage, but thanks to not exactly being real, there was hardly any blood.

Marie choked on a sob and turned away. "It's him," she gasped.

* * *

The funeral was arranged and happened before Dan knew it. Jerry and Marie insisted that they pay for everything, and they got him a plot near where he was going to attend college. It was halfway between Jerry and Marie and Jack and Maddie. Dan invisibly attended his own funeral. It was strange to see. He was attending his own funeral as a literal ghost, but he wasn't dead.

He didn't tell anyone, but he haunted the house that Jerry and Marie had bought him for a few days. He watched as they packed back up the stuff that he didn't even finish unpacking. He hadn't practiced this power often, and they didn't believe in ghosts, but it would be worth it.

Dan concentrated on the memory of what his ghost form used to look like at first and what he normally wore. His ghostly body gradually compressed and shrunk, and his clothes shifted to his casual t-shirt and jeans. He regained visibility and stood there as they continued. It didn't take them long to notice him.

Jerry froze, staring at Dan. Then he rapidly slapped Marie's shoulder. "What?" she snapped, turning around. She stopped the instant she saw him. Eventually, she took a few cautious steps forward until she was only a few inches from him. "Dan?" she said, her voice shaking.

Dan nodded, smiling slightly. "Remember when I said that ghosts were common in Amity Park?"

Marie instantly pulled him into a hug so tight that he could barely breathe. Jerry approached as Marie let go, her hand lingering on Dan's shoulder.

"Bu-but ghosts can't be real," Jerry stuttered.

"They actually are. I grew up around them," Dan said.

"Are you okay?" Marie asked.

Dan nodded. "Yeah. I'm good. I'm just making sure you guys are okay."

"Yeah," Marie sniffed. "We're all the better now."

"Okay." Dan slowly let himself turn invisible again to make it seem like he was fading away.

"We love you," Jerry said as Dan completely disappeared.

Dan didn't stick around to see anything else, so he teleported directly into his old room at Fenton Works.


End file.
